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Title: The Saxons in England, Vol 2 (of 2) - A History of the English Commonwealth till the Period of - the Norman conquest
Author: Kemble, John Mitchell
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Note:
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characters are indicated with the ‘^’ (e.g. Serg^t).
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the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
A HISTORY OF
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
TILL THE PERIOD OF
THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
BY
JOHN MITCHELL KEMBLE, M.A., F.C.P.S.,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT MUNICH, AND OF THE ROYAL
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT BERLIN,
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF HISTORY IN STOCKHOLM, AND OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETY OF HISTORY IN COPENHAGEN,
ETC. ETC. ETC.
-----------------------
“Nobilis et strenua, iuxtaque dotem naturae sagacissima gens Saxonum, ab
antiquis etiam scriptoribus memorata.”
-----------------------
A NEW EDITION, REVISED BY
WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, F.R.S.L.,
_Senior Assistant of the Department of Manuscripts in the British
Museum, Honorary Librarian of the Royal Society of Literature, Honorary
Secretary of the British Archæological Association, etc._
VOLUME I.
LONDON:
BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY.
1876.
[Illustration:
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
]
CONTENTS.
VOL. II.
BOOK II.
THE PRINCIPLES AND PROGRESS OF THE CHANGE IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER Page
I. Growth of the Kingly Power 1
II. The Regalia or Rights of Royalty 29
III. The King’s Court and Household 104
IV. The Ealdorman or Duke 125
V. The Geréfa 151
VI. The Witena Gemót 182
VII. The Towns 262
VIII. The Bishop 342
IX. The Clergy and Monks 414
X. The Income of the Clergy 467
XI. The Poor 497
APPENDIX.
A. The Dooms of the City of London 521
B. Tithe 545
C. Towns 550
D. Cyricsceat 559
THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
------------------------------------
BOOK II.
THE PRINCIPLES AND PROGRESS OF THE CHANGE IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
GROWTH OF THE KINGLY POWER.
The object of the First Book was generally to give a clear view of the
principles upon which the original settlement of the Anglosaxons was
founded. But as our earliest fortunes are involved in an obscurity
caused by the almost total absence of contemporary records, and as the
principles themselves are not historically developed in all their
integrity, at least in this country, many conclusions could only be
arrived at through a system of induction, by comparing the known facts
of Teutonic history in other lands, or at earlier periods, by tracing
the remnants of old institutions in their influence upon society in an
altered, and perhaps somewhat deteriorated, condition, and lastly by
general reasoning derived from the nature of society itself. This Second
Book is however devoted to the historical development of those
principles, in periods whereof we possess more sufficient record, and to
an investigation of the form in which, after a long series of
compromises, our institutions slowly and gradually unfolded themselves,
till the close of the Anglosaxon monarchy. The two points upon which
this part of the subject more particularly turns, are, the introduction
of Christianity, and the progressive consolidation and extension of the
kingly power; and round these two points the chapters of this Book will
naturally group themselves. It is fortunate for us that the large amount
of historical materials which we possess, enables us to follow the
various social changes in considerable detail, and renders it possible
to let the Anglosaxons tell their own story to a much greater extent
than in the first Book.
In the course of years, continual wars had removed a multitude of petty
kings or chieftains from the scene; a consolidation of countries had
taken place; actual sovereignty, grounded on the law of force, on
possession, or on federal compacts, had raised a few of the old dynasts
above the rank of their fellows; the other nobles, and families of royal
lineage, had for the most part submitted to the law of the comitatus,
swelling the ranks, adorning the court, and increasing the power of
princes who had risen upon their degradation; and at the commencement of
the seventh century, England presented the extraordinary spectacle of at
least eight independent kingdoms, of greater or less power and
influence, and, as we may reasonably believe, very various degrees of
civil and moral cultivation. In the extreme south-eastern corner of the
island was the Kentish confederation, comprising in all probability the
present counties of Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex, whose
numerous kings acknowledged the supremacy of Æðelberht, the son of
Eormanríc, a prince of the house of Æscings, originally perhaps a Sussex
family, but who claimed their royal descent from Wóden, through Hengist,
the first traditional king of Kent. Under this head three of the eight
named kingdoms were thus united; but successful warlike enterprise or
the praise of superior wisdom had extended the political influence of
the Æscing even to the southern bank of the Humber. Next to Sussex,
along the southern coast, and as far westward as the border of the Welsh
in Dorsetshire or Devon, lay the kingdom of the Westsaxons or Gewissas,
which stretched northward to the Thames and westward to the Severn, and
probably extended along the latter river over at least a part of
Gloucestershire: this kingdom, or rather confederation, comprised all or
part of the following counties; Hampshire with the Isle of Wight, a
tributary sovereignty; Dorsetshire, perhaps a part of Devonshire,
Wiltshire, Berkshire, a portion of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and
Middlesex, up to the Chiltern Hills. Eastanglia occupied the extreme
east of the island, stretching to the north and west up to the Wash and
the marshes of Lincoln and Cambridgeshire, and comprehending, together
with its marches, Norfolk and Suffolk, and part at least of Cambridge,
Huntingdon, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Mercia with its dependent
sovereignties occupied nearly all the remaining portion of England east
of the Severn and south of the Humber, including a portion of
Herefordshire, and probably also of Salop, beyond the western bank of
the former river: while two small kingdoms, often united into one, but
when separate, called Deira and Bernicia, filled the remaining space
from the Humber to the Pictish border, which may be represented by a
line running irregularly north-east from Dumbarton to Inverkeithing[1].
In the extreme west the remains of the Keltic populations who had
disdained to place themselves under the yoke of the Saxons, still
maintained a dangerous and often threatening independence: and Cornwall
and Devon, North and South Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumberland,
perhaps even part of Northumberland, still formed important fortresses,
garrisoned by this hardy and unsubjugated race. Beyond the Picts,
throughout the north of Scotland, and in the neighbouring island of
Ireland, were the Scots, a Keltic race, but not so nearly allied as the
Cornish, Cymric and Pictish tribes.
-----
Footnote 1:
There is not much positive evidence on this subject: but perhaps the
following considerations may appear of weight. The distinctive names
of Water in the two principal Keltic languages of these islands,
appear to be _Aber_ and _Inver_: the former occurs frequently in
Wales, the latter never: on the other hand, Aber rarely, if ever,
occurs in Ireland, while Inver does. If we now take a good map of
England and Wales and Scotland, we shall find the following data.
In Wales:
Aber-avon, lat. 51° 36´ N., long. 3° 47´ W.
Abergavenny, lat. 51° 49´ N., long. 3° 2´ W.
Abergwilli, lat. 51° 52´ N., long. 4° 17´ W.
Aberystwith, lat. 52° 25´ N., long. 4° 4´ W.
Aberfraw, lat. 53° 12´ N., long. 4° 28´ W.
Abergele, lat. 53° 20´ N., long. 3° 38´ W.
In Scotland:
Aberlady, lat. 56° 0´ N., long. 2° 52´ W.
Aberdour, lat. 56° 3´ N., long. 3° 17´ W.
Aberfoil, lat. 56° 20´ N., long. 4° 21´ W.
Abernethy, lat. 56° 19´ N., long. 3° 18´ W.
Aberbrothie (Arbroath), lat. 56° 33´ N., long. 2° 35´ W.
Aberfeldy, lat. 56° 37´ N., long. 3° 51´ W.
Abergeldie, lat. 57° 3´ N., long. 3° 6´ W.
Aberchalder, lat. 57° 6´ N., long. 4° 46´ W.
Aberdeen, lat. 57° 8´ N., long. 2° 5´ W.
Aberchirdir, lat. 57° 34´ N., long. 2° 37´ W.
Aberdour, lat. 57° 40´ N., long. 2° 11´ W.
In Scotland:
Inverkeithing, lat. 56° 2´ N., long. 3° 23´ W.
Inverary, lat. 56° 15´ N., long. 5° 4´ W.
Inverarity, lat. 56° 36´ N., long. 2° 54´ W.
Inverbervie, lat. 56° 52´ N., long. 2° 21´ W.
Invergeldie, lat. 57° 1´ N., long. 3° 12´ W.
Invernahavon, lat, 57° 1´ N., long. 4° 9´ W.
Invergelder, lat. 57° 2´ N., long. 3° 15´ W.
Invermoriston, lat. 57° 12´ N., long. 4° 40´ W.
Inverness, lat. 57° 28´ N., long. 4° 13´ W.
Invernetty, lat. 57° 29´ N., long. 1° 48´ W.
Invercaslie, lat. 57° 58´ N., long. 4° 36´ W.
Inver, lat. 58° 9´ N., long. 5° 10´ W.
The line of separation then between the Welsh or Pictish, and the
Scotch or Irish Kelts, if measured by the occurrence of these names,
would run obliquely from S.W. to N.E., straight up Loch Fyne,
following nearly the boundary between Perthshire and Argyle, trending
to the N.E. along the present boundary between Perth and Inverness,
Aberdeen and Inverness, Banff and Elgin, till about the mouth of the
river Spey. The boundary between the Picts and English may have been
much less settled, but it probably ran from Dumbarton, along the upper
edge of Renfrewshire, Lanark and Linlithgow till about Abercorn, that
is along the line of the Clyde to the Frith of Forth.
-----
It is probable enough that the princes who presided over these several
aggregations of communities, had their traditional or family alliances
and friendships, as well as their enmities, political and personal, and
that some description of public law may consequently have grown up among
them, by which their national intercourse was regulated. But we cannot
suppose this to have been either very comprehensive or well defined.
Least of all can we find any proof that there was a community of action
among them, of a systematic and permanent character. A national
priesthood, and a central service in which all alike participated, had
any such existed, might have formed a point of union for all the races;
but there is no record of this, and, I think, but little probability of
its having been found at any time. If we consider the various sources
from which the separate populations were derived, and the very different
periods at which they became masters of their several seats; their
constant hostility and the differences of language[2] and law; above all
the distance of their settlements, severed by deep and gloomy forests,
rude hills, unforded streams, or noxious and pestilential morasses, we
can hardly imagine any concert among them for the establishment of a
common worship; it is even doubtful—so meagre are our notices of the
national heathendom—whether the same gods were revered all over England;
although the descent of all the reigning families from Wóden would seem
to speak for his worship at least having been universal. Again, there is
reason to doubt that the priesthood occupied here quite so commanding a
position as they may have enjoyed upon the continent, partly because the
carelessness or hatred of the British Christians refused to attempt the
conversion of their adversaries[3], and thus afforded no opportunity for
a reaction or combined effort at resistance on the part of the Pagans;
and partly because we cannot look for any very deep rooted religious
convictions in the breast of the wandering, military adventurer, removed
from the time-hallowed sites of ancient, local worship, and strongly
tempted to “trow upon himself,” in preference to gods whose powers and
attributes he had little leisure to contemplate. The words of Coifi, a
Northumbrian high-priest, to Eádwini, do at any rate imply a feeling on
his part, that his position was not so brilliant and advantageous as he
thought himself entitled to expect; and the very expressions he uses,
implying a very considerable degree of subordination to the king of one
principality[4], are hardly consistent with the hypothesis of a national
hierarchy, which must have assumed a position scarcely inferior to that
of the sovereigns themselves. Finally, I cannot believe that, had such
an organization and such a body existed, there would be no trace of the
opposition it must have offered to the introduction of the new creed:
some record there must have been of a triumph so signal as that of
Christianity under such circumstances; and the good believers who lavish
miracles upon most inadequate occasions, must have given us some
well-authenticated cases by which the sanctity of the monk was
demonstrated to the confusion of the pagan. The silence of the Christian
historian is an eloquent evidence of the insignificant power of the
heathen priesthood.
-----
Footnote 2:
In the very early periods the Saxon inhabitants of different parts of
England would probably have found it difficult to understand one
another.
Footnote 3:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 22. “Qui, inter alia inenarrabilium scelerum
facta, quae historicus eorum Gildas flebili sermone describit et hoc
addebant, ut nunquam genti Saxonum sive Anglorum secum Brittaniam
incolenti verbum fidei praedicando committerent.”
Footnote 4:
“Tu vide, rex, quale sit hoc quod nobis modo praedicatur: ego autem
tibi verissime quod certum didici, profiteor, quia nihil omnino
virtutis habet, nihil utilitatis, religio illa quam hucusque tenuimus;
nullus enim tuorum studiosius quam ego culturae deorum nostrorum se
subdidit, et nihilominus multi sunt qui ampliora a te beneficia quam
ego, et maiores accipiunt dignitates, magisque prosperantur in omnibus
quae agenda vel adquirenda disponunt. Si autem dii aliquid ualerent me
potius iuvare vellent, qui illis impensius servire curavi.” Beda, H.
E. ii. 13. That Coifi is a genuine Northumbrian name, and not that of
a Keltic druid, is shown in a paper on Anglosaxon surnames, read
before the Archæological Institute at Winchester by the author in
1845.
-----
Much less can we admit that there was any central political authority,
recognized, systematic and regulated, by which the several kingdoms were
combined into a corporate body. There is indeed a theory, respectable
for its antiquity, and reproduced by modern ingenuity, according to
which this important fact is assumed, and we are not only taught that
the several kingdoms formed a confederation, at whose head, by election
or otherwise, one of the princes was placed with imperial power, but
that this institution was derived by direct imitation from the custom of
the Roman empire: we further learn that the title of this high
functionary was Bretwalda, or Emperor of Britain, and that he possessed
the imperial decorations of the Roman state[5]. When this discovery was
first made I know not, but the most detailed account that I have seen
may be given from the, in many respects, excellent and neglected work of
Rapin. He tells us[6]:—
“The Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, that conquered the best part of Britain,
looking upon themselves as one and the same people[7], as they had been
in Germany, established a form of government, as like as possible to
what they had lived under in their own country. They formed their
Wittena-Gemot, or assembly of wise men, to settle the common affairs of
the seven kingdoms, and conferred the command of their armies upon one
chosen out of the seven kings, to whom, for that reason no doubt, some
have given the title of Monarch, on pretence of his having the
precedence and some superiority over the rest. But to me that dignity
seems rather to have been like that of Stadtholder of the United
Provinces of the Low Countries. There was however some difference
between the Saxon government in Britain and that in Germany. For
instance, in Germany the governor of each province entirely depended on
the General Assembly, where the supreme power was lodged; whereas in
Britain, each king was sovereign in his own dominions. But
notwithstanding this, all the kingdoms together were, in some respects,
considered as the same state, and every one submitted to the resolutions
of the General Assembly of the Seven Kingdoms, to which he gave his
consent by himself or representative.... A free election, and sometimes
force, gave the Heptarchy a chief or monarch, whose authority was more
or less, according to their strength[8]. For though the person invested
with this office had no right to an unlimited authority, there was
scarce one of these monarchs but what aspired to an absolute power.”
-----
Footnote 5:
Palgrave, Anglos. Commonw. i. 562 _seq._ The Roman part of the theory
is very well exploded by Lappenberg, who nevertheless gives far too
much credence to the rest.
Footnote 6:
Vol. i. p. 42 of Tindal’s translation.
Footnote 7:
This seems very doubtful, at least until lapse of years, commerce, and
familiar intercourse had broken down the barriers between different
races.
Footnote 8:
In the second edition of Tindal’s Rapin there is a print representing
the Kings of the Heptarchy in council. The president, Monarch or
Bretwalda, is very amusingly made larger and more ferocious than the
rest, to express his superior dignity!
-----
This description has at least the advantage of detail and of
consistency, even though it should unfortunately lack that of truth; but
most of those who in more modern times have adopted the hypothesis,
refrain from giving us any explanation of the fact it assumes: they tell
us indeed the title, and profess to name those who successively bore it,
but they are totally silent as to the powers of this great public
officer, as to the mode of his appointment, the manner in which he
exerted his authority, or the object for which such authority was found
necessary. I must frankly confess that I am unable to find any evidence
whatever in favour of this view, which appears to me totally
inconsistent with everything which we know of the state and principles
of society at the early period with which we have to deal. In point of
fact, everything depends upon the way in which we construe a passage of
Beda, together with one in the Saxon Chronicle, borrowed from him, and
the meaning which history and philology justify us in giving to the
words made use of by both authors. As the question is of some
importance, it may as well be disposed of at once, although only two
so-called Bretwaldas are recorded previous to the seventh century.
Modern ingenuity, having hastily acquiesced in the existence of this
authority, has naturally been somewhat at a loss to account for it; yet
this is obviously the most important part of the problem: accordingly
Mr. Sharon Turner looks upon the Bretwalda as a kind of war-king, a
temporary military leader: he says[9],—
“The disaster of Ceawlin gave safety to Kent. Ethelbert preserved his
authority in that kingdom, and at length proceeded to that insulary
predominance among the Anglosaxon kings, which they called the
Bretwalda, or the ruler of Britain. Whether this was a mere title
assumed by Hengist, and afterwards by Ella, and continued by the most
successful Anglosaxon prince of his day, or conceded in any national
council of all the Anglosaxons, or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon king
that most felt and pressed his temporary power,—whether it was an
imitation of the British unbennaeth, or a continuation of the Saxon
custom of electing a war-cyning, cannot now be ascertained.”
-----
Footnote 9:
Hist. Angl. Sax. bk. iii. ch. 5, vol. i. p. 319.
-----
To this he adds in a note:—
“The proper force of this word Bretwalda cannot imply conquest, because
Ella the First is not said to have conquered Hengist or Cerdic; nor did
the other Bretwaldas conquer the other Saxon kingdoms.”
Again he returns to the charge: in the eighth chapter of the same book,
he says[10]:—
“Perhaps the conjecture on this dignity which would come nearest the
truth, would be, that it was the Walda or ruler of the Saxon kingdoms
against the Britons, while the latter maintained the struggle for the
possession of the country,—a species of Agamemnon against the general
enemy, not a title of dignity or power against each other. If so, it
would be but the war-king of the Saxons in Britain, against its native
chiefs.”
-----
Footnote 10:
Hist. Angl. Sax. i. 378.
-----
Lappenberg, adopting this last view, refines upon it in detail: he
believes the Bretwalda to have been the elected generalissimo of the
Saxons against the Welsh or other Keltic races, and that as the tide of
conquest rolled onwards, the dignity shifted to the shoulders of that
prince whose position made him the best guardian of the frontiers. But
this will scarcely account to us for the Bretwaldadom of Ælle in Sussex,
Æðelberht in Kent, or Rǽdwald in Eastanglia; yet these are three
especially named. Besides we have a right to require some evidence that
there ever was a common action of the Saxons against the Britons, and
that they really were in the habit of appointing war-kings in England,
two points on which there exists not a tittle of proof. Indeed it seems
clear to me that a piece of vicious philology lurks at the bottom of
this whole theory, and that it rests entirely upon the supposition that
_Bret_walda means Ruler of the _Britons_, which is entirely erroneous.
Yet one would think that on this point there ought to have been no doubt
for even a moment, and that it hardly required for its refutation the
philological demonstration which will be given. Let us ask by whom was
the name used or applied? By the Saxons: but surely the Saxons could
never mean to designate themselves by the name _Bret_, Britain; nor on
the other hand could a general against the Britons be properly called
their _wealda_ or king, the relation expressed by the word _wealda_
being that of sovereignty over subjects, not opposition to enemies.
Moreover, if this British theory were at all sound, how could we account
for the title being so rarely given to the kings of Wessex, and never to
those of Mercia, both of whom were nevertheless in continual hostile
contact with the Welsh, and of whom the former at least exercised
sovereign rights over a numerous Welsh population dispersed throughout
their dominions? Again, why should it have been given to successive
kings of Northumberland, whose contact with the British aborigines, even
as Picts, was not of any long continuance or great moment[11]? Above
all, why should it not have been given to Æðelfríð, who as Beda tells us
was the most severe scourge the Kelts had ever met with[12]? But there
are other serious difficulties arising from the nature of the military
force which, on any one of the suppositions we are considering, must
have been placed at this war-king’s disposal: is it, for example,
conceivable, that people whose military duty did not extend beyond the
defence of their own frontiers, and who even then could only be brought
into the field under the conduct of their own shire-officers, would have
marched away from home, under a foreign king, to form part of a mixed
army? still more, that the comites of various princes, whose bond and
duty were of the most strictly personal character, could have been
mustered under the banner of a stranger[13]? Yet all this must be
assumed to have been usual and easy, if we admit the received opinions
as to the Bretwalda. We should also be entitled to ask how it happened
that Wulfhere, Æðelbald, Offa, Cénwulf, the preeminently military kings
of the Mercians, should have refrained from the use of a title so
properly belonging to their preponderating power in England, and so
useful in giving a legal and privileged authority to the measures of
permanent aggrandizement which their resources enabled them to take?
-----
Footnote 11:
I am not aware of the Picts, Peohtas, having ever been numbered among
the Bretwealhas.
Footnote 12:
Hist. Eccl. i. 34. “Nemo enim in tribunis, nemo in regibus plures
eorum terras, exterminatis vel subiugatis indigenis, aut tributarias
genti Anglorum, aut habitabiles fecit.”
Footnote 13:
Nearly the only instance recorded of a mixed army, is that of Penda at
Winwedfeld; but it does not appear that this consisted of anything
more than the Comitatus of various chieftains personally dependent
upon, or in alliance with, himself. We do not learn that οἰOswiu’s
victory gave him any rights over the freemen in Eastanglia, which
could hardly have been wanting had the Eastanglian _hereban_ or _fyrd_
served under Penda.
-----
Another supposition, that this dignity was in some way connected with
the ecclesiastical establishment, the foundation of new bishoprics[14]
or the presidency of the national synods, seems equally untenable; for
in the first place there were Bretwaldas before the introduction of
Christianity; and the intervention of particular princes in the
foundation of sees, without the limits of their own dominions, may be
explained without having recourse to any such hypothesis; again, the
Church never agreed to any unity till the close of the seventh century
under Theodore of Tarsus; and lastly the presidency of the synods, which
were generally held in Mercia[15], was almost exclusively in the hands
of the Mercian princes, till the Danes put an end to their kingdom, and
yet those princes never bore the title at all. In point of fact, there
was no such special title or special office, and the whole theory is
constructed upon an insufficient and untenable basis.
-----
Footnote 14:
Lappenberg seems to connect these ideas together.
Footnote 15:
The synods were mostly held at Cealchýð or at Clofeshoas. The first of
these places is doubtful: all that can be said with certainty, is,
that it was not Challock in Kent, as Ingram supposes: the Saxon name
of that place was Cealfloca. I entertain little doubt that Clofeshoas
was in the county of Gloucester and hundred of Westminster.
-----
It will be readily admitted that the fancies of the Norman chroniclers
may at once be passed over unnoticed; they are worth no more than the
still later doctrines of Rapin and others, and rest upon nothing but
their explanation of passages which we are equally at liberty to examine
and test for ourselves: I mean the passages already alluded to from Beda
and the Saxon Chronicle. Let us see then what Beda says upon this
subject. He speaks thus of Æðelberht[16]:—
“In the year of our Lord’s incarnation six hundred and sixteen, which is
the twenty-first from that wherein Augustine and his comrades were
despatched to preach unto the race of the Angles, Æðelberht, the king of
the men of Kent, after a temporal reign which he had held most
gloriously for six and fifty years, entered the eternal joys of the
heavenly kingdom: who was indeed but the third among the kings of the
Angle race who ruled over all the southern provinces, which are
separated from those of the north by the river Humber and its contiguous
boundaries; but the first of all who ascended to the kingdom of heaven.
For the first of all who obtained this empire was Ælli, king of the
Southsaxons: the second was Caelin, king of the Westsaxons, who in their
tongue was called Ceaulin: the third, as I have said, was Æðilberht,
king of the men of Kent: the fourth was Redwald, king of the
Eastanglians, who even during the life of Æðilberht, obtained
predominance for his nation: the fifth, Aeduini, king of the race of
Northumbrians, that is, the race which inhabits the northern district of
the river Humber, presided with greater power over all the populations
which dwell in Britain, Britons and Angles alike, save only the men of
Kent; he also subdued to the empire of the Angles, the Mevanian isles,
which lie between Ireland and Britain: the sixth Oswald, himself that
most Christian king of the Northumbrians, had rule with the same
boundaries: the seventh Osuiu, his brother, having for some time
governed his kingdom within nearly the same boundaries, for the most
part subdued or reduced to a tributary condition the nations also of the
Picts and Scots, who occupy the northern ends of Britain.”
-----
Footnote 16:
Hist. Eccl. ii. 5.
-----
Certainly, it must be admitted that the exception of the Men of Kent, in
the case of Eádwini, is a serious blow to the Bretwalda theory. I have
used the word _predominance_, to express the _ducatus_ or _leadership_,
of Beda, and it is clear that such a leadership is what he means to
convey. But in all the cases which he has cited, it is equally clear
from every part of his book, that the fact was a merely accidental one,
fully explained by the peculiar circumstances in every instance: it is
invariably connected with conquest, and preponderant military power: a
successful battle either against Kelt or Saxon, by removing a dangerous
neighbour or dissolving a threatening confederacy, placed greater means
at the disposal of any one prince than could be turned against him by
any other or combination of others; and he naturally assumed a right to
dictate to them, _iure belli_, in all transactions where he chose to
consider his own interests concerned. But all the facts in every case
show that there was no concert, no regular dignity, and no regular means
of obtaining it; that it was a mere fluctuating superiority, such as we
may find in Owhyhee, Tahiti, or New Zealand, due to success in war, and
lost in turn by defeat. On the rout of Ceawlin, the second Bretwalda, by
the Welsh, we learn that he was expelled from the throne, and succeeded
by Ceólwulf, who spent many years in struggles against Angles, Welsh,
Scots and Picts[17]: according to Turner’s and Lappenberg’s theory, he
was the very man to have been made Bretwalda; but we do not find this to
have been the case, or that the dignity returned to the intervening
Sussex; but Æðelberht of Kent, whose ambition had years before led him
to measure his force against Ceawlin’s, stepped into the vacant
monarchy. The truth is that Æðelberht, who had husbanded his resources,
and was of all the Saxon kings the least exposed to danger from the
Keltic populations, was enabled to impose his authority upon his brother
kings, and to make his own terms: and in a similar way, at a later
period, it is clear that Rædwald of Eastanglia was enabled to deprive
him of it. I therefore again conclude that this so-called Bretwaldadom
was a mere accidental predominance; there is no peculiar function, duty
or privilege anywhere mentioned as appertaining to it; and when Beda
describes Eádwini of Northumberland proceeding with the Roman _tufa_ or
banner before him, as an ensign of dignity, he does so in terms which
show that it was not, as Palgrave seems to imagine, an ensign of
imperial authority used by all Bretwaldas, but a peculiar and remarkable
affectation of that particular prince. Before I leave this word
_ducatus_, I may call attention to the fact that Ecgberht, whom the
Saxon Chronicle adds to the list given by Beda, has left some charters
in which he also uses it[18], and that they are the only charters in
which it does occur. From these it appears that he dated his reign ten
years earlier than his _ducatus_, that is, that he was _rex_ in 802, but
not _dux_ till 812. Now it is especially observable that in 812 he had
not yet commenced that career of successful aggression against the other
Saxon kingdoms, which justified the Chronicler in numbering him among
those whom Camden and Rapin call the Monarchs, and Palgrave the Emperors
of Britain. He did not attack Mercia and subdue Kent till 825: in the
same year he formed his alliance with Eastanglia: only in 820 did he
ruin the power of Mercia, and receive the submission of the
Northumbrians. But in the year 812 he did move an army against the
Welsh, and remained for several months engaged in military operations
within their frontier: there is every reason then to think that the
_ducatus_ of Ecgberht is only a record of those conquests over his
British neighbours, which enabled him to turn his hand with such
complete success against his Anglosaxon rivals; and thus that it has no
reference to the expression used by Beda to express the factitious
preponderance of one king over another. Let us now inquire to what the
passage in the Saxon Chronicle amounts, which has put so many of our
historians upon a wrong track, by supplying them with the suspicious
name Bretwalda. Speaking of Ecgberht the Chronicler says[19], “And the
same year king Ecgberht overran the kingdom of the Mercians, and all
that was south of the Humber; and he was the eighth king who was
Bretwalda.” And then, after naming the seven mentioned by Beda, and
totally omitting all notice of the Mercian kings, he concludes,—“the
eighth was Ecgberht, king of the Westsaxons.”
-----
Footnote 17:
Chron. Sax. an. 591, 597.
Footnote 18:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 1038, 1039, 1041.
Footnote 19:
Chron. Sax. an. 827.
-----
Now it is somewhat remarkable that of six manuscripts in which this
passage occurs, one only reads Bretwalda: of the remaining five, four
have Bryten-walda or-wealda, and one Breten-anweald, which is precisely
synonymous with Brytenwealda. All the rules of orderly criticism would
therefore compel us to look upon this as the right reading, and we are
confirmed in so doing by finding that Æðelstán in one of his
charters[20] calls himself also “Brytenwealda ealles ðyses
ealondes,”—ruler or monarch of all this island. Now the true meaning of
this word, which is compounded of _wealda_, a ruler, and the adjective
_bryten_, is totally unconnected with Bret or Bretwealh, the name of the
British aborigines, the resemblance to which is merely accidental:
_bryten_ is derived from _breótan_, to distribute, to divide, to break
into small portions, to disperse: it is a common prefix to words
denoting wide or general dispersion[21], and when coupled with _wealda_
means no more than an extensive, powerful king, a king whose power is
widely extended. We must therefore give up the most attractive and
seducing part of all this theory, the name, which rests upon nothing but
the passage in one manuscript of the Chronicle,—and that, far from equal
to the rest in antiquity or correctness of language: and as for anything
beyond the name, I again repeat that we are indebted for it to nothing
but the ingenuity of modern scholars, deceived by what they fancied the
name itself; that there is not the slightest evidence of a king
exercising a central authority, and very little at any time, of a
combined action among the Saxons; and that it is quite as improbable
that any Saxon king should ever have had a federal army to command, as
it is certainly false that there ever was a general Witena gemót for him
to preside over. I must therefore in conclusion declare my disbelief as
well in a college of kings, as in an officer, elected or otherwise
appointed, whom they considered as their head. The development of all
the Anglosaxon kingdoms was of far too independent and fortuitous a
character for us to assume any general concert among them, especially as
that independence is manifested upon those points particularly, where a
central and combined action would have been most certain to show
itself[22].
-----
Footnote 20:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1110. “Ongolsaxna cyning ⁊ brytænwalda ealles ðyses
iglandæs;” and, in the corresponding Latin, “Rex et rector totius
huius Britanniae insulae.” an. 34.
Footnote 21:
The following words compounded with _Bryten_ will explain my meaning
to the Saxon scholar: _Bryten-cyning_ (exactly equivalent to
_bryten-wealda_), a powerful king. Cod. Exon. p. 331. _Bryten-grund_,
the wide expense of earth. Ibid. p. 22. _Bryten-ríce_, a spacious
realm. Ibid. p. 192. _Bryten-wong_, the spacious plain of earth. Ibid.
p. 24. The adjective is used in the same sense, but uncompounded,
thus; _breotone bold_, a spacious dwelling. Cædm. p. 308.
Footnote 22:
I allude more particularly to the introduction of Christianity, the
enactment of laws, the establishment of dioceses, and military
measures against the Britons. In two late publications, Mr. Hallam has
bestowed his attention upon the same subject, and with much the same
result. His acute and well-balanced mind seems to have been struck by
the historical difficulties which lie in the way of the Bretwalda
theory, though he does not attach so much force as I think we ought,
to its total inconsistency with the general social state of Anglosaxon
England in the sixth and seventh centuries, or as seems justly due to
the philological argument. He cites from Adamnan a passage in these
words: “(Oswald) totius Britanniae imperator ordinatus a deo.” But
these words only prove at the utmost that Adamnan attributed a certain
power to Oswald, connected in fact with conquest, and implying
anything but consent, election or appointment, by his fellow-kings.
And Mr. Hallam himself inclines to the belief that the title may have
been one given to Oswald by his own subjects, rather than the
assertion of a fact that he truly ruled over all Britain. He conceives
that the three Northumbrian kings, having been victorious in war and
paramount over the minor kingdoms, were really designated, at least
among their own subjects, by the name Bretwalda, or ruler of Britain,
and “totius Britanniae imperator,”—an assumption of pompous titles
characteristic of the vaunting tone which continued to increase down
to the Conquest. (Supplemental Notes to the View of the Middle Ages,
p. 199 _seq._) This however is hardly consistent with Beda and the
Chronicle. The only passage in its favour is that of Adamnan, and this
is confined to one prince. Adamnan however was a Kelt, and on this
account I should be cautious respecting any language he used. Again, I
am not prepared to admit the probability of a territorial title, at a
time when kings were kings of the people, not of the land. But most of
all do I demur to the reading Bretwalda itself, which rests upon the
authority neither of coins nor inscriptions, and is supported only by
one passage of a very bad manuscript; while it is refuted by five much
better copies of the same work, and a charter: I therefore do not
scruple to say that there is no authority for the word. In all but
this I concur with Mr. Hallam, whose opinion is a most welcome support
to my own.
-----
But although I cannot admit the growth of an imperial power in any such
way, I still believe the royal authority to have been greatly
consolidated, and thereby extended, before the close of the sixth
century. It is impossible, for a very long period, to look upon the
Anglosaxon kingdoms otherwise than as camps, planted upon an enemy’s
territory, and not seldom in a state of mutual hostility. All had either
originated in, or had at some period fallen into, a state of military
organization, in which the leaders are permitted to assume powers very
inconsistent with the steady advance of popular liberty; and in the
progress of their history, events were continually recurring which
favoured the permanent establishment and consolidation of those powers.
Upon all their western and northern frontiers lay ever-watchful and
dangerous Keltic populations, the co-operation of whose more inland
brethren was always to be dreaded, and whose attacks were periodically
renewed till very long after the preponderance of one crown over the
rest was secured,—attacks only too often favoured by the civil wars and
internal struggles of the Germanic conquerors. Upon all the eastern
coasts hovered swarms of daring adventurers, ready to put in practice
upon the Saxons themselves the frightful lesson of piracy which these
had given the Roman world in the third and fourth centuries, and ever
welcomed by the Keltic inhabitants as the ministers of their own
vengeance. The constant state of military preparation which was thus
rendered necessary could have no other result than that of giving a vast
preponderance to the warlike over the peaceful institutions; of raising
the practised and well-armed comites to a station yearly more and more
important; of leading to the multiplication of fortresses, with their
royal castellans and stationary garrisons; nay—by constantly placing the
freemen under martial law, and inuring them to the urgencies of military
command—of finally breaking down the innate feeling and guarantees of
freedom, and even of materially ruining the cultivator, all whose energy
and all whose time were not too much, if a comfortable subsistence was
to be wrung from the soil he owned. It is also necessary to bear in mind
the power derived from forcible possession of lands from which the
public enemy had been expelled, and which, we may readily believe,
turned to the advantage, mostly if not exclusively, of the king and his
nobles. No wonder then if at a very early period the Mark-organization,
which contained within itself the seeds of its own decay, had begun to
give way, and that a systematic _commendation_, as it was called, to the
adjacent lords was beginning to take its place. To the operation of
these natural causes we must refer the indisputable predominance
established by a few superior kings before the end of the sixth century,
not only over the numerous dynastic families which still remained
scattered over the face of the country, but also over the free holders
in the gá or scýr.
To these however was added one of still greater moment. The introduction
of Christianity in a settled form, which finally embraced the whole
Saxon portion of the island, dates from the commencement of the seventh
century. Though not unknown to the various British tribes, who had long
been in communication with their fellow-believers of Gaul and, according
to some authorities[23], of Rome, it had made but little progress among
the German tribes, although a tendency to give it at least a tolerant
hearing had for some time been making way among them[24]. But in 595
Pope Gregory the Great determined upon giving effect to his scheme of a
missionary expedition to Britain, which he had long revolved, had at one
time determined to undertake in person, and had relinquished only as far
as his own journey was concerned, in consequence of the opposition
manifested by the inhabitants of Rome to his quitting the city. Having
finally matured his plan, he selected a competent number of monks and
ecclesiastics, and despatched them under the guidance of Augustine, with
directions to found an episcopal church among the heathen Saxons. The
progress and success of this missionary effort must not be treated of
here; suffice it to say that, one by one, the Teutonic kingdoms of the
island accepted the new faith, and that before the close of the first
century from the arrival of Augustine, the whole of German England was
united into one church, under a Metropolitan, who accidentally was also
a missionary from Rome[25].
-----
Footnote 23:
See Schrödl, Erste Jahrhund. der Angl. Kirche, 1840, p. 2, notes. If
the assertion of Prosper Tyro is to be trusted, that Celestine sent
Germanus into Britain as his vicar, _vice sua_, the relation must have
been an intimate one. See also Nennius, Hist. cap. 54. Neander however
declares against the dependence of the British church upon Rome, and
derives it from Asia Minor. Alg. Geschichte der Christ. Relig. u.
Kirche, vol. i. pt. 1. p. 121. The question has been treated in late
times as one of bitter controversy.
Footnote 24:
This may be inferred from Gregory’s letters to Theódríc and Theódbert
and to Brunichildis. “Atque ideo pervenit ad nos Anglorum gentem ad
fidem Christianam, Deo miserante, desideranter velle converti, sed
sacerdotes e vicino negligere,” etc.; again: “Indicamus ad nos
pervenisse Anglorum gentem, Deo annuente, velle fieri Christianam; sed
sacerdotes, qui in vicino sunt, pastoralem erga eos sollicitudinem non
habere.” Bed. Op. Minora, ii. 234, 235.
Footnote 25:
Theodore of Tarsus.
-----
Strange would it have been had the maxims of law or rules of policy
which these men brought with them, been different from those which
prevailed in the place from which they came. Roman feelings, Roman views
and modes of judging, the traditions of the empire and the city, the
legislation of the emperors and the popes,—these were their sources both
of opinion and action. The predominance of the kings must have appeared
to them natural and salutary; the subordination of all men to their
appointed rulers was even one of the doctrines of Christianity itself,
as taught by the great apostle of the gentiles, and recommended by the
example of the Saviour. But the consolidation and advancement of the
royal authority, if they could only form a secure alliance with it,
could not but favour their great object of spreading the Gospel among
populations otherwise dispersed and inaccessible: hence it seems
probable that all their efforts would be directed to the end which
circumstances already favoured, and that the whole spiritual and
temporal influence of the clergy would be thrown into the scale of
monarchy. Moreover the clergy supplied a new point of approach between
our own and foreign courts: to say nothing of Rome, communication with
which soon became close and frequent, very shortly after their
establishment here, we find an increased and increasing intercourse
between our kings and those of Gaul; and this again offered an
opportunity of becoming familiar with the views and opinions which had
flowed, as it were, from the imperial city into the richest and happiest
of her provinces. The strict Teutonic law of wergyld, they perhaps could
not prevail to change, and to the last, the king, like every other man,
continued to have his price; but the power of the clergy is manifest
even in the very first article of Æðelberht’s law, and to it we in all
probability owe the ultimate affixing of the penalty of death to the
crime of high-treason,—a marvellous departure from the ancient rule.
Taking all the facts of the case into account, we cannot but believe
that the introduction of Christianity, which not only taught the
necessity of obedience to lawful authority, but accustomed men to a more
central and combined exercise of authority through the very spectacle of
the episcopal system itself, tended in no slight degree to perpetuate
the new order which was gradually undermining and superseding the old
Mark-organization, and thus finally brought England into the royal
circle of European families[26].
-----
Footnote 26:
Æðelberht of Kent married a Frankish princess, so did Æðelwulf of
Wessex. Offa of Mercia was engaged in negotiations for a nuptial
alliance with the house of Charlemagne, and several Anglosaxon ladies
of royal blood found husbands among the sovereign families of the
Continent.
-----
The chapters of the present Book will be devoted to an investigation of
the institutions proper to this altered condition, to the officers by
whom the government of the country was conducted, from the seventh to
the eleventh centuries, and to the general social relations which thus
arose. If in the course of our investigation it should appear that a
gradually diminishing share of freedom remained to the people, yet must
we bear in mind that the old organization was one which could not keep
pace with the progress of human society, and that it was becoming daily
less suited to the ends for which it first existed; that in this, as in
all great changes, a compromise necessarily took place, and mutual
sacrifices were required; after all, that we finally retained a great
amount of rational and orderly liberty, full of the seeds of future
development, and gained many of the advantages of Roman cultivation,
without paying too high a price for them, in the loss of our
nationality.
CHAPTER II.
THE REGALIA, OR RIGHTS OF ROYALTY.
In the strict theory of the Anglosaxon constitution the King was only
one of the people[27], dependent upon their election for his royalty,
and upon their support for its maintenance. But he was nevertheless the
noblest of the people, and at the head of the state, as long as his
reign was felt to be for the general good, the keystone and completion
of the social arch. Accordingly he was invested with various dignities
and privileges, enabling him to exercise public functions necessary to
the weal of the whole state, and to fill such a position in society as
belonged to its chief magistrate. Although his life, like that of every
other man, was assessed at a fixed price,—the price of an æðeling or
person of royal blood,—it was further guarded by an equal amount, to be
levied under the name of _cynebót_, the price of his royalty; and the
true character of these distinctions is clear from the fact of the first
sum belonging to the family, the second to the people[28].
-----
Footnote 27:
The names by which the King is commonly known among most of the
Germanic nations are indicative of his position. From Þeód, the
people, he is called þeóden: from his high birth (cyne nobilis, and
cyn genus, i.e. generosus a genere), he is called Cyning: from Dryht,
the troop of comites or household retainers, he is Dryhten: and as
head of the first household in the land, he is emphatically Hláford:
his consort is seó Hlǽfdige, the Lady. His poetical and mythical names
need not be investigated on this occasion.
Footnote 28:
Be Wergyldum, Norðleóda laga, § 1. Myrcna laga, § 1. Thorpe, i. 186,
190: “Se wer gebirað magum ⁊ seó cynebót ðám leódum.”
-----
His personal rights, or royalties, consisted in the possession of large
domains which went with the crown[29], a sort of τεμενος, which were his
own property only while he reigned, and totally distinct from such
private estates as he might purchase for himself; in short his Woods and
Forests, which the Crown held under the guarantee and supervision of the
Witena gemót. Also, in the right to receive _naturalia_, or voluntary
contributions in kind from the free men, which gradually became depraved
into compulsory payments. Of these the earliest mention is by
Tacitus[30], who tells us that it was the custom, voluntarily and
according to the power of the people, to present their princes with
cattle and corn, which was not only a mark of honour but a substantial
means of support; and the annals of the Frankish kings abound with
instances of these presentations, which generally took place at the
great meetings of the people, or Campus Madius[31]. His further
privileges consisted in the right to receive a portion of the fines
payable for various offences, and the confiscation of offenders’ estates
and chattels; in various distinctions of dress, dwelling, and the like;
above all, in the maintenance of a standing army of comrades, called at
a late period Húscarlas or household troops. It was for him to call
together the Witena gemót or great council of the realm, whenever
occasion demanded, and to lay before them propositions touching the
general welfare of the state; in concurrence also with them, to extend
or amend the existing legislation. At the same time I do not find that
he possessed the power of dismissing these counsellors when he thought
he had had enough of their advice, or of preventing them from meeting
without his special summons: in which two rights, when injudiciously
exercised, the historian finds the key to the downfall of so many
monarchies. As general conservator of the public peace, both against
foreign and domestic disturbers, the king could call out the _fyrd_, an
armed levy or militia of the freemen, proclaim his peace upon the
high-roads, and exact the cumulative fines by which the breach of it was
punished. He was also the proper guardian of the coinage; and, in some
respects, the fountain of justice, seeing that he might be resorted to,
if justice could not be obtained elsewhere. We may also look upon him
as, at least to a certain degree, the fountain of honour, since he could
promote his comrades, thanes or ministers to higher rank, or to posts of
dignity and power. All these various rights and privileges he possessed
and exercised, by and with the advice, consent and licence of his Witena
gemót or Parliament. It is desirable to consider the various details
connected with this subject, in succession, and to illustrate them by
examples from Anglosaxon authorities.
-----
Footnote 29:
Æðelred about 980, gives the following reasons for a grant made by him
to Abingdon. During the lifetime of Eádgar, this prince had given to
the monastery certain estates belonging to the appanage of the princes
of the blood, “_terras ad regios pertinentes filios_:” these, on
Eádgar’s death and Eádweard’s accession, the Witena gemót very
properly claimed and obtained, handing them over to Æðelred, then
prince royal: “quae statim terrae iuxta decretum et praeceptionem
cunctorum optimatum de praefato sancto coenobio violenter abstractae,
_meaeqae ditioni, hisdem praecipientibus, sunt subactae_: quam rem si
iuste aut iniuste fecerint, ipsi sciant.” All the crown lands thus
fell to Æðelred, he having no children at his brother Eádweard’s
death: “et _regalium_ simul, et _ad regios filios pertinentium,
terrarum_ suscepi dominium.” Having now scruples of conscience about
interfering with his father’s charitable intentions, he gave the
monastery an equivalent out of his own private property,—“_ex mea
propria haereditate_.” Cod. Dipl. No. 3312.
Footnote 30:
Germ. xv.
Footnote 31:
See Domesday, _passim_. Cnut commanded to put an end to these
compulsory demands: no man was to be compelled to give his reeves
anything towards the king’s feormfultum, against his will, under a
heavy penalty, but the king was to be provided for out of the royal
property. Cnut, § 70. Thorpe, i. 412. If Phillips is right in
supposing the Fóster of Ini’s law (§70. Thorpe, i. 146) to be this
burthen, heavy charges lay upon the land in the eighth century.
Angels. Recht. p. 87. But I doubt the application in this particular
case. See also, Anon. Vita Hludov. Imp. § 7; Pertz, ii. 610, 611;
Annal. Laurish. 753; Ann. Bertin. 837; Pertz, i. 116, 430, and
Hincmar. Inst. Carol. ibid. ii. 214. _Aids_ and _benevolences_ have
acquired a notoriety in English history which will not be forgotten
while England survives: but the prerogative lawyers had ancient
prescription to back them. On the whole subject see Grimm, Rechtsalt.
p. 245. Eichhorn, § 171. vol. i. p. 730 _seq._
-----
Although under a Christian dispensation the king could no longer be
considered as appertaining to a family exclusively divine, yet the old
national tradition still aided in securing to him the highest personal
position in the commonwealth. He had a wergyld indeed, but it far
exceeded that of any other class: nor was it in this alone that his
paramount dignity was recognized, but in the comparative amount of the
fines levied for offences against himself, his dependents or his
property. And as the principle of all Teutonic law is, that the amount
of _bót_ or compensation shall vary directly with the dignity of the
party leased, the high tariff appointed for royalty is evidence that the
king really stood at the summit of the social order, and was the first
in rank and honour, whatever he may have been in power. This is equally
apparent in the earliest law, that of Æðelberht, as in Eádweard the
Confessor’s, the latest. Thus, if he called his Leóde, _fideles_ or
thanes, to him, and they were injured on the way, a compensation double
the ordinary amount could be exacted, and in addition a fine of fifty
shillings to the king[32]. And so likewise, if he honoured a subject by
drinking at his house, all offences, then and there committed, were
punishable by a double fine[33]. Theft from him bore a ninefold, from a
ceorl or freeman only a threefold, compensation[34]. His mundbyrd or
protection was valued at fifty shillings; that of an eorl and ceorl at
twelve and six respectively[35]: this applied to the cases where a man
slew another in the king’s tún, the eorl’s tún, or the ceorl’s edor[36];
and to the dishonour of his maiden-serf, which involved a fine of fifty
shillings, while the eorl’s female cupbearer was protected only to the
amount of twelve, the ceorl’s to that of six shillings[37]. His
messenger or armourer, if by chance they were guilty of manslaughter,
could only be sued for a mitigated wergyld, by which they, though
probably unfree, were placed upon a footing of equality with the
freeman[38]. His word, like that of a bishop, was to be
incontrovertible, that is, no oath could be tendered to rebut it[39]. He
that fought in the king’s hall, if taken in the act, was liable to the
punishment of death, or such doom as the king should decree[40]: the
king’s burhbryce, or violence done to his dwelling, was valued at 120
shillings, an archbishop’s at 90, a bishop’s or ealdorman’s at 60, a
twelfhynde man’s at 30, a syxhynde’s at 15, but a ceorl’s or freeman’s
only at 5; and these sums were to be doubled if the militia was on
foot[41]. His borhbryce, or breach of surety, and his mundbyrd or
protection were raised by Ælfred to five pounds, while the archbishop’s
was valued at three, the bishop’s or ealdorman’s at two pounds[42]. He
could give sanctuary to offenders for nine days[43], and peculiar
privileges of the same kind were extended to those monasteries which
were subject to his farm or _pastus_[44]. His geneát or comrade, if of
the noble class, could swear for sixty hides of land[45]. His
horsewealh, the Briton employed in his stables, was placed on an equal
footing with the freeman, at a wergyld of 200 shillings[46]; and even
his godson had a particular protection[47]. Lastly, high-treason, by
compassing the king’s death, harbouring of exiles, or of the king’s
rebellious dependents, was made liable to the punishment of death[48].
-----
Footnote 32:
Æðelb. i. § 2. This enactment has been supposed to be the foundation
of one of those privileges of Parliament, which we have seen solemnly
discussed on a late occasion.
Footnote 33:
Æðelb. i. § 3.
Footnote 34:
Ibid. § 4, 9.
Footnote 35:
Ibid. § 8, 15.
Footnote 36:
Ibid. § 5, 13.
Footnote 37:
Ibid. § 10, 14, 16.
Footnote 38:
Æðelb. § 7, 21.
Footnote 39:
Wihtr. § 16. The position and privileges of the clergy at this very
early period, and especially in Kent, were very exalted. Æðelberht
places the king only on the footing of a priest, in respect to his
stolen property. Æðelb. § 1. But this grave error was remedied as
society became better consolidated, although to the very last the
clergy were left in possession of far too much secular power.
Footnote 40:
Ini, § 6. Ælf. § 7.
Footnote 41:
Ini, § 45. Ælfr. § 40.
Footnote 42:
Ælfr. § 3. Cnut, ii. § 59.
Footnote 43:
Æðelst. iii. § 6; iv. § 4; v. § 4.
Footnote 44:
Ælfr. § 2.
Footnote 45:
Ini, § 19.
Footnote 46:
Ini, § 33.
Footnote 47:
Ibid. § 76.
Footnote 48:
Ælf. § 4. Cnut, ii. § 58.
-----
The political position of the king, at the head of the state, was
secured by an oath of allegiance taken to him, by all subjects of the
age of twelve years[49], the ealdormen in the shires, the geréfan in the
various districts or towns, summoned his witan and the legal period of
majority among the Germans, for public purposes. In this capacity he
appointed named the members of their body[50]. In this capacity he was
empowered to inflict fines upon the public officers, and even private
individuals, for such neglect of duty as endangered the public
interests: these fines were paid under the title of the king’s
oferhýrnes, literally his _disobedience_: thus, if a man when summoned
refuse to attend the gemót; if a geréfa refuse to do justice, when
called upon, or to put the law in execution against offenders[51], and
in other similar cases where the whole framework of society requires the
existence of a central support, having power to hold its scattered
elements together, and in their places.
-----
Footnote 49:
“Imprimis ut omnes iurent in nomine Domini, pro quo sanctum illud
sanctum est, fidelitatem Eádmundo regi, sicut homo debet esse fidelis
domino suo, sine omni controversia et seditione, in manifesto, in
occulto, in amando quod amabit, nolendo quod nolet.” Eádm. iii. § 1.
Thorpe, i. 252. “And it is our will, that every man above twelve years
of age, make oath that he will neither be a thief, nor cognizant of
theft.” Cnut, ii. § 21. Thorpe, i. 388. “Omnis enim duodecim annos
habens et ultra, in alicuius frithborgo esse debet et in decenna;
sacramentumque regi et hæredibus suis facere fidelitatis, et quod nec
latro erit, nec latrocinio consentiet.” Fleta, lib. i. cap. 27. § 4.
This was the basis upon which the associations of freemen among the
Anglosaxons entered into their alliances, offensive and defensive,
with their kings. Charlemagne caused an oath to be taken to himself as
emperor, by all his subjects above twelve years old. Dönniges, p. 3.
The Hyldáð or oath of fealty is given in the Anc. Laws, i. 178. The
dependent engages to love all the lord loves, and shun all that he
shuns: these are the technical terms throughout Europe. The king
himself took a corresponding oath to his people. We still have the
words of that which was administered by Dúnstán to Æðelred at
Kingston.
“Ðis gewrit is gewriten, stæf be “This writing is copied, letter for
stæfe, be ðám gewrite ðe Dúnstán letter, from the writing which
arcebisceop sealde úrum hláforde æt archbishop Dúnstán delivered to our
Cingestúne á on dæg ðá hine man lord at Kingston on the very day
hálgode tó cinge, and forbeád him when he was consecrated king, and
ælc wedd tó syllanne bútan ðysan he forbad him to give any other
wedde, ðe he úp on Cristes weofod pledge but this pledge, which he
léde, swá se bisceop him dihte. ‘On laid upon Christ’s altar, as the
ðǽre hálgan Þrynnesse naman, Ic bishop instructed him. ‘In the name
þreo þing beháte cristenum folce of the Holy Trinity, three things
and me underþeóddum: án ærest, ðæt do I promise to this Christian
ic Godes cyrice and eall cristen people, my subjects: first, that I
folc mínra gewealda sóðe sibbe will hold God’s church and all the
healde: óðer is, ðæt ic reáflác and Chistian people of my realm in
ealle unrihte þing eallum hádum true peace: second, that I will
forbeóde: þridde, þæt ic beháte and forbid all rapine and injustice to
bebeóde on eallum dómum riht and men of all conditions: third, that
mildheortnisse, ðæt ús eallum I promise and enjoin justice and
ærfaest and mildheort God þurh ðæt mercy in all judgements, whereby
his écean mittse forgife, se lifað the just and merciful God may give
and rixað.’”—Reliq. Ant. ii. 194. us all his eternal favour, who
liveth and reigneth!’”
It is worth while to compare with this the coronation oath of king
Eirek Magnusson, of Norway, which we learn from the following valuable
document of July 25th, 1280.
“Pateat universis tam clericis quam laicis per regnum Norwegie
constitutis presens scriptum visuris vel audituris quod anno domini
m^o. cc^o. lxxx^o. in festo sancti Suithuni Bergio in ecclesia
cathedrali magnificus princeps et nobilis dominus . Eiricus dei gracia
rex Norwegie illustris filius domini Magni quondam regis coram
reverendo patre et venerabili domino Johanne secundo divina
miseracione . Nidrosiensi archiepiscopo qui eum coronando in regem
coronam capiti eius inposuit . ipsiusque suffraganeis et multis
clericis et laicis qui presentes fuerant . tactis ewangeliis
iuramentum prestitit in hunc modum . Profiteor et promitto coram deo
et sanctis eius a modo pacem et iusticiam ecclesie dei . populoque
mihi subiecto observare . pontificibus et clero . prout teneor .
condignum honorem exhibere . secundum discrecionem mihi a deo datam .
atque ea que a regibus ecclesiis collata ac reddita sunt . sicut
compositum est inter ecclesiam et regnum . inviolabiliter conservare .
malasque leges et consuetudines perversas precipue contra
ecclesiasticam libertatem facientes abolere et bonas condere prout de
concilio fidelium nostrorum melius invenire poterimus . þæt jatta ek
gudi ok hans helgum mannum . at ek skal vardvæita frid ok rettyndi
hæilagre kirkiu ok þui folki sem ek er overðugr ivir skipaðr .
Byscopum ok lærdom mannum skal ek væita vidrkvæmelega soemd efter þui
sem ek er skyldugr . ok gud giæfr mer skynsemd til . ok þa luti halda
obrigðilega . sem af konunggum ero kirkiunni gefner . ok aftr fegner
sua sem samþykt er millum kirkiunnar ok rikissens . Rong log ok illar
siðueniur einkanlega þær . sem mote ero hæilagrar kirkiu frælsi af
taka ok betr skipa, eftir þui sem framazt faam ver raad til af varoni
tryggastu mannum . Cum igitur ante coronacionem dicti regis dubitacio
fuerit . de regis iuramento . volens predictus pater ne huiusmodi
dubitacio rediviva foret in posterum precavere. utile quippe etenim
est eam rem cognitam esse que ignorata vel dubia possit occasionem
litigii ministrare . iuramentum seu professionem factam a domino rege
. ad perpetuam memoriam . presentibus literis duxit inserendam . et ad
pleniorem rei evidenciam sigillum suum apposuit una cum sigillis
venerabilium partum . domini Andree Osloensis . Jorundi Holensis .
Erlendi Ferensis . Arnonis Skalotensis . Arnonis Stawangrensis . Nerue
Bergensis . Thorfinni Hamarensis suffraganeorum Nidrosiensis ecclesie
. Actum viii. Kal. Augusti loco et anno supradictis.”—Diplomatarium
Norwegicum, No. 69. p. 62.
It is very uncertain at what time the custom of coronation, and
_unction_, by the hands of the clergy, commenced. The usurpation which
Pipin ventured and Pope Zachary lent himself to, which Charlemagne
repeated and Pope Leo confirmed, may have acted as a valuable
precedent, especially as the power of the King was sufficient to
justify the claim of the Pope. Thirty years later (A.D. 787), the
English bishops put forward the somewhat bold claim to be, with the
_seniores_ populi, electors of the king: “Duodecimo sermone sanximus;
Ut in ordinatione regum nullus permittat pravorum praevalere assensum;
sed legitime reges a sacerdotibus et senioribus populi eligantur, et
non de adulterio vel incoestu procreati; quia sicut nostris temporibus
ad sacerdotium, secundum Canones, adulter pervenire non potest, sic
nec Christus domini esse valet, et rex totius regni, et haeres
patriae, qui ex legitimo non fuerit connubio generatus.” Conc.
Calcuth. Legat. Spelm. p. 296. No doubt from their position in the
Witena gemót, and the authority which they derived from their birth as
well as station, they always played an important part in the elections
of kings, but not quite so leading a part in the eighth century as
they here attempt to claim. The Diplomatarium Norwegicum supplies an
interesting illustration of the above-cited canon, in a dispensation
issued by Pope Innocent IV. (A.D. 1246) to Haakon Haakonson, from the
disqualification of illegitimate birth: “Cum itaque clare memorie
Haquinus, Norwegie rex pater tuus, te, prout accepimus, solutus
susceperit de soluta, nos tuam celsitudinem speciali benevolentia
prosequentes, ut huiusmodi non obstante defectu ad regalis solii
dignitatem et omnes actus legitimos admittaris, nec non quod heredes
tui legitimi tibi in dominio et honore succedant, fratrum nostrorum
communicato consilio, tecum auctoritate apostolica dispensamus.” No.
38, p. 30. This was not however considered a valid ground of objection
among the Anglosaxons, if the personal qualities of the prince were
such as to recommend him. From the words used by William of Malmesbury
we might infer that as late as the time of Æðelstán, the functions of
the bishops at the coronation were confined to anathematizing those
who would not be obedient subjects, but that the nobles performed the
actual coronation: he cites the following lines from an earlier
author, and one apparently contemporaneous with Æðelstán himself:—
“Tunc iuvenis nomen regni clamatur in omen,
Ut fausto patrias titulo moderetur habenas:
Conveniunt proceres et componunt diadema,
Pontifices pariter dant infidis anathema.”
De Gest. ii. § 133.
That Harold crowned himself is an old story; but it is very certain
that whatever he did, was done with the full consent of the Witena
gemót.
Footnote 50:
See hereafter the several chapters Ealdorman, Geréfa and Witena gemót.
Footnote 51:
The principal cases will be found in the following passages of the
Laws: Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 20, 22, 26; iii. § 7; iv. §1, 7; v. §
11. Eádm. iii. § 2, 6, 7. Eádg. i. § 4; ii. § 7, etc.
-----
The maintenance of the public peace is the first duty of the king, and
he is accordingly empowered to levy fines for all illegal breaches of
it, by offences against life, property or honour[52]: in very grave
cases of continued guilt, he is even entrusted with the right of
banishing and outlawing offenders, whose wealth and family connexions
seem to place them beyond the reach of ordinary jurisdictions[53]. Where
the course of private war is to be settled by the legal compensations,
it is the king’s peace which is established between the contending
parties, the relatives and advocates of the slayer and the slain[54].
And in accordance with these principles, we find the kings’s peace
peculiarly proclaimed upon the great roads which are the highways of
commerce and means of internal communication, and the navigable streams
by which cities and towns are supplied with the necessary food for their
inhabitants[55]. And hence also he was allowed to proclaim his peace
over all the land at certain times and seasons; as, for eight days at
his coronation, and the same space of time at Christmas, Easter and
Whitsuntide. He might also, either by his hand or writ, give the
privileges of his peace to estates which would otherwise not have
possessed it, and thus place them upon the same footing of protection as
his own private residences[56]. The great divisions of the country, that
is the shires, could only be determined by the central power: it is
therefore provided that these shall be in the especial right of the
king: “Divisiones scirarum regis proprie cum iudicio quatuor chiminorum
regalium sunt[57].” And to the end of maintaining peace, it appears to
me that the king must also have been the authority to whom, at least in
theory, it was left to settle the boundaries even of private estate;
which on the conversion of folcland into bócland, he did, generally by
his officers, but sometimes in person[58].
Footnote 52:
Hloðh. § 9, 11, 12, 13, 14. Ælf. § 37. Æðelst. i. § 1; iii. § 4; v. §
5.
Footnote 53:
Æðelst. iii. § 3; iv. § 1.
Footnote 54:
Eád. Gúð. § 13. Eádm. ii. § 1, 6, 7.
Footnote 55:
Eád. Conf. § 12. Cross roads and small streams are not in the king’s
peace, but that of the county.
Footnote 56:
This peace was called the King’s Handsell, “cyninges handsealde gríð.”
The extent to which his peace extended around his dwelling, that is,
within the verge of the court, has been noticed in the fourth chapter
of the First Book. The right subsisted throughout the Middle Ages and
yet subsists, though differently motived and measured. The king’s
handsealde gríð was by Æðelred’s law made bótless, that is, had no
settled compensation. Æðelr. iii. § 1.
Footnote 57:
Eádw. Conf. § 13.
Footnote 58:
“Æðelingawudu, Colmanora and Geátescumbe belong to these twenty hides,
which I myself, now rode, now rowed, and widely divided off, for
myself, my predecessors, and those that shall come after me, for an
eternal separation, before God and the world.” Eádred. an. 955. Cod.
Dipl. No. 1171. “Now I greet well my relative Mygod of Wallingford,
and command thee in my stead [on mínre stede] to ride round the land
to the saint’s hand.” Eádw. Conf., Cod. Dipl. No. 862. The force of
the word _berídan_ is very difficult to convey in words, but still
perfectly obvious. Another difficulty arises from the word _stede_,
which is properly masculine, but here given as a feminine. I think it
impossible that it should mean _stéde_, a mare (i. e. on my mare), and
prefer the supposition either that _stede_ had changed its gender, or
that the copy of the charter is an incorrect one.
-----
But the great machinery for keeping peace between man and man, is the
establishment of courts of justice, and a system by which each man can
have law, by the consent and with the co-operation of his neighbours,
without finding it necessary to arm in his own defence. It has been
shown in the First Book, that such means did exist in the Mark and Gá
courts; and that for nearly all the purposes of society, it is
sufficient and advisable that justice should be done within the limits
and by the authority of the freemen. A centralized system however brings
modifications with it, even into the administration of justice. If, as I
believe, the original king was a judge, who superinduced the warlike
upon his peaceful functions, we can easily see how, with the growth of
the monarchy, the judicial authority of the king should become extended.
I cannot doubt that, in the historical times of the Anglosaxons, the
king was the fountain of justice; by which expression I certainly do not
mean that every suit must be commenced in one of the superior courts, or
by an original writ, issuing out of the royal chancery[59], but that the
king was looked upon as the authority by whom the judges were supported
and upheld, who was to be appealed to, if no justice could be got
elsewhere, and who had the power to punish malversation in its
administration by his officers.
-----
Footnote 59:
There are cases nevertheless which seem to favour the supposition that
a similar power was ultimately lodged in the king and, at least
occasionally, exercised.
-----
We may leave the tale of Ælfred’s hanging the unjust judges to the same
veracious chapter of history as records his invention of trial by jury:
but it is obvious, from the words of his biographer, that he assumed
some right to direct them in the exercise of their functions. He there
appears not to have waited until complaints were made of their
maladministration; but to have adopted the Frankish and Roman custom of
dispatching _Missi_ or royal commissioners into the provinces subject to
his rule, in order to keep a proper check upon the proceedings of the
public officers of justice. Asser says,—and I record his words with the
highest respect and admiration of Ælfred’s real and great deserts,—that
“he investigated with great sagacity the judgments given throughout
almost all his region, which had been delivered when he was not present,
as to what had been their character, whether they were just, or unjust.
And if he detected any injustice in such judgments, he, either in
person, or by people in his confidence, mildly enquired why the judges
had given such unjust decisions, whether through ignorance, or through
malversation of another kind, as fear, or favour, or hope of gain. And
then, if the judges admitted that they had so decided, because they knew
no better in the premises, he would gently and moderately correct their
ignorance and folly, and say: ‘I marvel at your insolence, who, by God’s
gift and mine, have taken upon yourselves the ministry and rank of wise
men, but have neglected the study and labour of wisdom. Now it is my
command that ye either give up at once the administration of those
secular powers which ye enjoy, or pay a much more devoted attention to
the studies of wisdom.’”
A certain pedantry is obvious enough in all this story, which, taken
literally, under the circumstances of the time, is merely childish.
Still, as Asser, though he may not entirely represent the facts of this
period[60] in their true Germanic sense, does very likely represent some
of the king’s private wishes and opinions, this, among other passages,
may serve to show why, in spite of his great merits, Ælfred once in his
life had not a man to trust to in his realm. Let us look at the matter a
little more closely. In the many kingdoms and districts which by
conquest or inheritance came under the Westsaxon rule, various customary
laws had prevailed[61]. It is very natural that judgments given in
accordance with these customs should often appear inconsistent and
discordant to a body of men collected from different parts of the realm.
Asser is therefore very probably in the right, when he says: “The nobles
and non-nobles alike were frequently at variance in the meetings of the
comites and praepositi, [that is, in the Witena gemóts,] so that
scarcely any one would admit the decisions of the comites and praepositi
[that is, in the shire, hundred and burhmót] to be correct.” But it is
also probable that he misstates or overstates the extent of the royal
power, when he continues: “But Ælfred, who for his own part knew that
some injustice arose thereby, was not very willing to meddle with the
decision of this judge or that; although he was compelled thereunto both
by force of law and by stipulation[62].”
-----
Footnote 60:
I may here say once for all, that I see no reason to doubt the
authenticity of Asser’s Annals, or to attribute them to any other
period than the one at which they were professedly composed.
Footnote 61:
Ælfred himself mentions the Kentish, Mercian and Westsaxon laws. The
Danes had another. Peculiarities of the Northangle and Southangle laws
are also noticed.
Footnote 62:
By the contract entered into with his people: but when? when they
first elected him? or when they restored him to his throne?
-----
For in fact the king was the authority to be resorted to in the last
instance; not because he could introduce a system of jurisprudence
founded upon Roman Decretals or Alaric’s Breviary,—which his favourite
advisers would probably have liked much better than his ealdormen,
præfects and people,—but because he could lend the aid of the state to
enforce the judgments of the several courts, or even compel the courts
to give judgment, by reason of the central power which he wielded as
king. As long however as the courts themselves were willing to decide
causes brought before them, which the people assembled in the gemóts
did, under the presidency and direction of the customary officers, the
king had no right to interfere: and even to appeal to the king until
justice had been actually denied in the proper quarter was an offence
under the Saxon law, punishable by fine[63]. In short, under that law,
the people were themselves the judges, and helped the geréfa to find the
judgment, be the court what it might be. The king’s authority could give
no more than power to execute the sentence. It is remarkable enough that
while Asser speaks of the instruction and correction which Ælfred
administered to his judges, he does not even insinuate that their
decisions were reversed,—a fact perfectly intelligible when we bear in
mind that these decisions were not those of judges in our sense of the
word, and as the Mirror plainly understood them, but of the people in
their own courts, finding the judgment according to customary law. It
would have been a very different case had the courts been the king’s
courts; and in those where the class called king’s thanes stood to right
either before the king himself, or the king’s geréfa, it is possible
that Ælfred may have interfered. This he had full right to do, inasmuch
as these thanes were exclusively his own sócmen, and must take such law
as he chose to give them[64]. Indeed the words of Asser seem
reconcileable with the general state of the law in Ælfred’s time only on
the supposition that he refers to these royal courts or þeningmanna
gemót; for the king could never have been expected to be present at
every shire- or hundred-mót, and yet Asser says he diligently
investigated such judgments as were given when he was not present,
almost all over his region. This only becomes probable when confined to
the administration of justice in the several counties in his own royal
courts, and by his own royal reeves, in whose method of proceeding he
was at liberty to introduce much more extensive alterations at pleasure,
than he could have done in the customary law of the shires or other
districts.
-----
Footnote 63:
“And let him that applies to the king before he has prayed for justice
as often as it behoveth him [that is, made the legal number of formal
applications to the shiremoot, etc.] pay the same fine as the other
should had he denied him justice.” Æðelst. i. 1. § 3. Thorpe, i. 200.
Eádgar, ii. § 2. Thorpe, i. 266. “And let no one apply to the king,
unless he cannot get justice within his hundred: but let the
hundred-gemót be duly applied to, according to right, under penalty of
the wíte, or fine.” Cnut, ii. § 17. Thorpe, i. 384 _seq._ Similarly
Will. Conq. i. § 43. Thorpe, i. 485. It is impossible to believe that
Ælfred possessed a right which later and much more powerful kings did
not.
Footnote 64:
“And let no one have sócn over a king’s thane save the king himself.”
Æðelr. iii. § 11. Thorpe, i. 296.
-----
If however justice was entirely denied in the shire or hundred, then,
_iure imperii_, the king had the power of interfering: and as it seems
clear that such a case could only arise from the influence of some great
officer being exerted to prevent the due course of law, it follows that
the only remedy would lie in the king’s power to repress him; either by
removing him from his office, if one derived from the crown, or _iure
belli_, putting him down as a nuisance to the realm[65].
-----
Footnote 65:
If the ealdorman connive at theft, or at the escape of a thief, he is
to forfeit his office. Ini, § 36. Thorpe, i. 124. If a geréfa do so,
he shall forfeit all he hath. Æðelst. i. § 3. If he will not put the
law in execution, he shall lose his office. Æðelst. i. 26; v. § 11.
Eádg. ii. § 3. Thorpe, i. 200, 212, 240, 266.
-----
In the later times of the Anglosaxon monarchy, a more immediate
interference of the king in the administration of justice is
discernible. It consists in what might be called the commendation of
suits to the notice of the proper courts: and this, which was done by
means of a writ or _insigel_, probably at first took place only in the
case where a sócman of the king was impleaded in the shiremoot touching
property subject to its jurisdiction, in fact where one party was a free
landowner, the other in the king’s service or sócn; where of course the
first would not stand to right in the royal courts, but before his peers
in the shire or hundred[66]. There is no mention in the laws of the
Insigel or Breve[67], but the charters give some evidence of what has
been averred. In a very important record of the time of Æðelrǽd
(990-995) these words occur[68]:— “This writing showeth how Wynflǽd led
her witness at Wulfamere before King Æðelrǽd; now that was Sigeríc the
archbishop, and Ordbyrht the bishop, and Ælfríc the ealdorman, and
Ælfðrýð the king’s mother: and they all bore witness that Ælfríc gave
Wynflǽd the land at Hacceburnan, and at Brádan-felda in exchange for the
land at Deccet. Then at once the king sent by the archbishop and them
that bore witness with him, to Leófwine, and informed him of this. But
he would consent to nothing, but that the matter should be brought
before the shiremoot. And this was done. Then the king sent by Ælfhere
the abbot, his _insigel_ to the gemót at Cwichelmeshlǽw, and greeted all
the Witan who were there assembled,—that is, Æðelsige the bishop, and
Æscwig the bishop, and Ælfríc the abbot, and all the shire, and bade
them arbitrate between Leófwine and Wynflǽd, as to them should seem most
just[69].”
-----
Footnote 66:
There is an instance where the parties to a suit were similarly
circumstanced. The matter was brought into the king’s þeningmanna
gemót in London, and there decided in favour of the plaintiff, a
bishop. But the defendant was not satisfied, and carried the cause to
the shire, who at once claimed jurisdiction and exercised it too,
coming to a decision diametrically opposite to that of the þeningmen
or _ministri regii_. It seems to have been a dirty business on the
part of the bishop of Rochester, and the freemen of Kent so treated
it, in defiance of the King’s Court. Cod. Dipl. No. 1258. The document
is so important, that it appears desirable to give it at full length.
“Thus were the lands at Bromley and Fawkham adjudged to king Eádgár in
London, through the charters of Snodland, which the priests stole from
the bishop of Rochester and secretly sold for money to Ælfric the son
of Æscwyn: and the same Æscwyn, Ælfric’s mother, had previously
granted them thither. Now when the bishop found the books were stolen
he made earnest demand for them. Meanwhile Ælfric died, and he (the
bishop) afterwards sued the widow so long that in the king’s
thanes-court the stolen books of Snodland were adjudged to him, and
damages for the theft, thereto; that was in London, and there were
present Eádgár the king, archbishop Dúnstán, bishop Æðelwold, bishop
Ælfstán and the other Ælfstán, Ælfhere the ealdorman and many of the
king’s witan: then they adjudged the books to the bishop for his
cathedral: so all the widow’s property stood in the king’s hand. Then
would Wulfstán the geréfa seize the property to the king’s hand, both
Bromley and Fawkham; but the widow sought the holy place and the
bishop, and surrendered to the king the charter of Bromley and
Fawkham: and the bishop bought the charters and the land of the king
at Godshill, for fifty mancuses of gold, and a hundred and thirty
pounds, through intercession and interest: afterwards the bishop
permitted the widow the usufruct of the land. During this time the
king died; and then Bryhtríc the widow’s relative began, and compelled
her, so that they took violent possession of the land [brúcon ðára
landa on reáfláce]. And they sought Eádwine the ealdorman, who was
God’s adversary, and the folk, and compelled the bishop to restore the
books on peril of all his property: he was not allowed to enjoy his
rights in any one of the three things which had been given him in
pledge by all the _leódscipe_, neither his plea, his succession, nor
his ownership. This is the witness of the purchase: Eádgár the king,
Dunstan the archbishop, Oswald the archbishop, bishop Æðelwold, bishop
Æðelgar, bishop Æscwig, bishop Ælfstán, the other bishop Ælfstán,
bishop Sideman, Ælfðrýð the king’s mother, Osgar the abbot, Ælfhere
the ealdorman, Wulfstan of Delham, Ælfric of Epsom, and the leading
people [dúgúð folces] of West Kent, where the land and lathe lie.”
Here I take it the þeningmen or _servientes regis_ and the leódscipe
(leudes) are identical and opposed to the _Folc_ who under “God’s
adversary” Eádwine made the bishop disgorge his plunder. We see who
they were; Dunstan and various bishops, ealdorman Ælfhere and several
of the king’s witan. This is the only instance I have been able to
discover of anything approaching to a _curia regis_ apart from the
great Witena gemót. There are, no doubt, several cases where the king
appears to have been applied to in the first instance, by one of the
parties; but in all of them trial subsequently was had before the
shiremoot. It is natural that agreements should have been made by
consent, before the king as arbitrator, and these were probably
frequent among his intimate councillors, friends and relatives: but
they were not trials, nor did they settle the litigation as a
judgement of the courts would have done. Such arbitrements were also
made by the ealdorman, who like the king received presents for his
good offices. The advantage gained was this; both parties were
satisfied, without the danger of trying the suit, which entailed very
heavy penalties on the loser, amounting sometimes to total forfeiture.
The disadvantage was that there was no _ge-endodu spræc_ or finished
plea, and consequently the award was sometimes violated, when either
party thought this could be done with impunity.
Footnote 67:
Excepting a very indefinite expression in the Law of Henry the First,
§ 13.
Footnote 68:
Cod. Dipl. No. 693. Cwichelmeshlǽw, now Cuckamsley or Cuckamslow
Hills, in Berkshire; these run east and west and probably cut off the
north-western portion of the county, forming the watershed from which
the Ock and Lambourn descend on opposite sides. The exact spot of the
gemót was probably near a mound which is now called Scutchamfly
Barrow, and which is very plainly marked in the Ordnance Map, nearly
due north of West Ilsey.
Footnote 69:
The lands are Bradfield, Hagborne and Datchet, in Berks and Bucks.
Wulfamere I am unable to identify. At all events, had the matter been
cognizable in a superior court of the king’s, Leófwine could not have
carried his point of having it brought to trial before the shiremoot
in Berkshire, which he clearly did against the king’s wish.
-----
There can be no mistake about the fact; but it does not amount to a
proof that the cause could not have been settled without this formality:
both parties to it were of the highest rank; but if the king’s
arbitration were refused, the title to the land at Bradfield could
legally be tried only in the county of Berkshire in which it lay.
Something similar may have been intended by the notice which occurs in
the record of another shiregemót (held about 1038 at Ægelnóðes stán in
Herefordshire) where it is said that Tófig Prúda came thither _on the
kings errand_[70].
-----
Footnote 70:
Cod. Dipl. No. 641.
-----
PARDON.—When judgment was pronounced, it appears that in certain cases,
at least, the king possessed the power to stay execution and pardon the
offender,—an exertion of the royal prerogative which one feels pleasure
in thus referring to so ancient a period. The necessary evidence is
supplied in many passages of the Laws[71].
-----
Footnote 71:
“If a man fight or draw weapon in the king’s hall and be taken in the
act, he shall lie at the king’s mercy, to slay or pardon him.” Ælf. §
7. Ini, § 6. Thorpe, i. 66, 106. “The ealdorman who connives at theft
shall forfeit his office, unless the king pardon him.” Ini, § 36.
Thorpe, i. 124. See also Æðelst. v. 1. § 4, 5, Eádm. § 6. Eádg. ii. §
7. Æðelr. iii. § 16; vii. § 9. Thorpe, i. 230, 250, 268, 298, 330.
ESCHEAT AND FORFEITURE.—As the royal power became consolidated, and the
great struggle between centralization and local independence assumed the
new form of offences against the state, the nature of punishments became
somewhat changed. The old pecuniary fines were found insufficient to
repress disorder, and forfeiture to the king was resorted to, as a
measure of increased severity. The laws proclaim this in the case of
various breaches of the public peace: in treason Ælfred’s witan decreed
not only the punishment of death, but also confiscation of all the
possessions[72]: in addition to the capital penalty which was incurred
by fighting in the king’s house, forfeiture of all the chattels was
decreed by Ini[73]. If a lord maintained and abetted a notorious thief,
he was to forfeit all he had[74]. And if he neglected the fines
provided, and would break the public peace either by thieving or
supporting thieves, it was provided that the public authorities should
ride to him, that is make war upon him, and despoil him of all he had,
whereof half was to go to the king, half to the persons who took part in
the expedition[75]. But the charters supply numerous instances of
forfeiture in consequence of crime, where the bóclands as well as the
chattels are seized into the king’s hand; though in the case of folcland
it is possible that the king could not claim the forfeiture without a
positive grant of the witan. About 900, Helmstán having been guilty of
theft, Eánwulf, the king’s geréfa at Tisbury seized all his chattels to
the king’s hand[76]: he held only lǽnland, and that could not be
forfeited by him; but the words made use of show, that had it been his
own bócland, it would not have escaped. We have an instance of a thane
forfeiting lands to the king for adultery[77], although he only held
them on lease from the bishop of Winchester; and in like manner, a lady
was deprived of her estate for incontinence[78]. In 966 the bishop of
Rochester having obtained judgment and damages against a lady, for
forcible entry upon his lands (reáflác), the sheriff of Kent seized her
manors of Fawkham and Bromley; all her possessions being forfeited to
the king[79]: lastly in various instances of theft, treason, and
maintenance of ill-doers, we learn that their lands were forfeited to
the king[80].
-----
In a case of intestacy, where there were no legal heirs, the king was
allowed to enter upon the lands of Burghard, probably because he had
been a royal geréfa[81]. And in the ninth century, Wulfhere, an
ealdorman, having deserted his duchy, his country and his lord, without
license, his lands were adjudged as forfeit to the king[82]. It would
seem however that the mere neglect to cultivate or inhabit the land
involved its confiscation to the king’s hand[83], which may have been
confined to folcland.
-----
Footnote 72:
Ælf. § 4. Thorpe, i. 62.
Footnote 73:
Ini, § 6. Thorpe, i. 106.
Footnote 74:
Æðelst. i. § 3. Thorpe, i. 200.
Footnote 75:
Æðelst. i. § 20. Thorpe, i. 210; see also § 26. Thorpe, i. 214.
Æðelst. iii. § 3. Thorpe, i. 218; iv. § 1; v. § 1, 5. Eádm. ii. § 1,
6. Eádg. Hund. § 2, 3. Eádg. i. § 4. Æðelr. v. § 28, 29; vi. § 35, 37:
vii. § 9; ix. § 42. Cnut, ii. § 13, 58, 67, 78, 84. Thorpe, i. 220,
228, 230, 248, 250, 258, 264, 310, 312, 324, 330, 350, 382, 408, 410,
420, 422.
Footnote 76:
Cod. Dipl. No. 328. “Eánwulf the reeve ... took all he owned at
Tisbury ... and the chattels were adjudged to the king, because he was
the king’s man: and Ordláf took to his own land, because it was his
lǽn that he sat upon: that he could not forfeit.”
Footnote 77:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 601, 1090.
Footnote 78:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1295. “Quae portio terrae cuiusdam foeminae fornicaria
praevaricatione mihimet vulgari subacta est traditione.” Æðelred, an.
1002.
Footnote 79:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1258. “Ða stód ðáre wydewan áre on ðæs cynges handa: ðá
wolde Wulfstán se geréfa niman ða áre tó ðæs cynges handa, Brómleáh ⁊
Fealcnahám.”
Footnote 80:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 579, 1112. “Quo mortuo praedicta mulier Ælfgyfu alio
copulata est marito, Wulfgat vocabulo; qui ambo crimine pessimo iuste
ab omni incusati sunt populo, causa suae machinationis propriae, de
qua modo non est dicendum per singula, propter quam vero machinationem
quae iniuste adquisierunt iuste perdiderunt.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1305. The
exile of Wulfgeat is mentioned by the Chronicle and Florence, an.
1006. Again, “Nam quidam minister Wulfget vulgari relatu nomine
praefatam terram aliquando possederat, sed quia inimicis regis se in
insidiis socium applicavit, et in facinore inficiendo etiam legis
satisfactio ei defecit, ideo haereditatis suberam penitus amisit, et
ex ea praedictus episcopus praescriptam villulam, me concedente,
suscepit.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1310. “Has terrarum portiones Ælfríc
cognomento Puer a quadam vidua Eádfléd appellata violenter abstraxit,
ac deinde cum in ducatu suo contra me et contra omnem gentem meam reus
existeret, et hae quas praenominavi portiones et universae quas
possederat terrarum possessiones meae subactae sunt ditioni, quando ad
synodale conciliabulum ad Cyrneceastre universi optimates mei simul in
unum convenerunt, et eundem Ælfricum maiestatis reum de hac patria
profugum expulerunt, et universa ab illo possessa michi iure
possidenda omnes unanimo consensu decreverunt.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1312.
“Emit quoque praedictus vir Æðelmarus a me, cum triginta libris,
duodecim mansiones de villulis quas matrona quaedam nomine Leoflǽd
suis perdidit ineptiis et amisit.” Cod. Dipl. No. 714. “Hoc denique
rus cuiusdam possessoris Leofricus onomate quondam et etiam nostris
diebus paternae haereditatis hire fuerat, sed ipse impie vivendo, hoc
est rebellando meis militibus in mea expeditione, ac rapinis insuetis
et adulteriis multisque aliis nefariis sceleribus semet ipsum condempn
avit simul et possessiones.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1307. “Erat autem eadem
villa cuidam matronae, nomine Æðelflǽde, derelicta a viro suo, obeunte
illo, quae etiam habebat germanum quendam, vocabulo Leófsinum, quem de
satrapis nomine tuli, ad celsioris dignitatis dignum duxi promovere,
ducem constituendo, scilicet, eum, unde humiliari magis debuerat,
sicut dicitur, ‘Principem te constituerunt, noli extolli,’ et caetera.
Sed ipse hoc oblitus, cernens se in culmine maioris status sub rogatu
famulari sibi pestilentes spiritus promisit, superbiae scilicet et
audaciae, quibus nichilominus ipse se dedidit in tantum, ut
floccipenderet quin offensione multimoda me multoties graviter
offenderet; nam praefectum meum Æficum, quem primatem inter primates
meos taxavi, non cunctatus in propria domo eius eo inscio perimere,
quod nefarium et peregrinum opus est apud christianos et gentiles.
Peracto itaque scelere ab eo, inii consilium cum sapientibus regni mei
petens, ut quid fieri placuisset de illo decernerent; placuitque in
commune nobis eum exulare et extorrem a nobis fieri cum complicibus
suis: statuimus etiam inviolatum foedus inter nos, quod qui
praesumpsisset infringere, exhaereditari se sciret omnibus habitis,
hoc est, ut nemo nostrum aliquid humanitatis vel commoditatis ei
sumministraret. Hanc optionis electionem posthabitam nichili habuit
soror eius Æðelflǽd omnia quae possibilitatis eius erant, et
utilitatis fratris omnibus exercitiis studuit explere, et hac de causa
aliarumque quamplurimarum exhaeredem se fecit omnibus.” Cod. Dipl. No.
719.
The murder of Æfic is mentioned in the Chronicle, an. 1002, where he
is called heáhgeréfa.
Footnote 81:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1035. But not if he had legal heirs. See Cnut, ii. §
71. Thorpe, i. 412. In this case the king could claim only the Heriot,
a custom retained even by the Normans. “Item si liber homo intestatus
decesserit, et subito, dominus suus nihil se intromittet de bonis
suis, nisi tantum de hoc quod ad ipsum pertinuerit, scilicet quod
habeat suum Heriettum.” Fleta, ii. cap. 57, § 10.
Footnote 82:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1078.
Footnote 83:
Hist. Eliens. i. 1. “Sicque postea per destitutionem, regiae sorti,
sive fisco, idem locus additus est.” See also vol. i. p. 302, note 2.
-----
FINES.—It is hardly necessary to enter into any great detail respecting
the fines which were imposed for various offences against the state, and
which were levied by the public officers to the king’s use. The laws
abound with examples: it may in general be concluded that the proceeds
were nearly absorbed by the cost of collection, and that little remained
to the king when the portions of the ealdorman and geréfa had been
deducted. But still these fines require a particular notice, because
they are especially enumerated by Cnut among the rights of his crown. He
says:—“These are the rights which the king enjoys over all men in
Wessex: that is, Mundbryce, and Hámsócne, Foresteal, Flýmena fyrmð, and
Fyrdwíte, unless he will more amply honour any one, and concede to him
this worship[84].” In Mercia, he declares himself entitled to the same
rights[85], and also by the Danish law, that is in Northumberland and
Eastanglia,—with the addition of Fihtwíte, and the fine for harbouring
persons out of the Fríð or public peace[86]. These evidently belong to
him in his character of conservator of that peace: Mundbryce is breach
of his own protection: Hámsócn is an aggravated assault upon a private
dwelling: Foresteal here, the maintenance of criminals and interference
to prevent the course of justice: Flýmena fyrmð, the comforting and
supporting of outlaws or fugitives: Fyrdwíte, the penalty for neglecting
to attend, or for deserting, the armed levy when duly proclaimed:
Fihtwíte is the penalty for making private war. These regalia he could
grant to a subject if such were his pleasure. But they are far from
exhausting the catalogue of his rights: he possessed many others, which
were either honourable or profitable, and were by him alienated in
favour of his lay or clerical favourites.
-----
Footnote 84:
Cnut, ii. § 12. Thorpe, i. 382.
Footnote 85:
Cnut, ii. § 14. Thorpe, i. 384.
Footnote 86:
Cnut, ii. § 15. Thorpe, i. 384.
-----
TREASURE TROVE.—The first of these is Treasure-trove, which was, in all
probability, of considerable importance and value: it is designated in
Anglosaxon charters by the words “ealle hordas búfan eorðan and binnan
eorðan,” and frequently occurs in the grants to monastic houses. In very
early and heathen periods various causes combined to render the burial
of treasure common. It was a point of honour to carry as much wealth
with one from this world to the next as possible; and it was a
recognized duty of the comites and household of a chief to sacrifice at
his funeral, whatever valuable chattels they might have gained in his
service. We may infer from Beówulf[87] that a portion at least of the
treasure he gained by his fatal combat with the firedrake was to
accompany him in the tomb. Some of it was to be burnt with his body, but
some, according to the practice of the pagan North, to be buried in the
mound raised over his ashes[88].
Hí on beorg dydon They put into the mound
beág ⁊ beorht siglu, rings and bright gems,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
forléton eorla gestreón they let earth hold
eorðan healdan, the gains of noble men,
gold on greóte, gold in the dust,
ðǽr hit nú gen lífað where it doth yet remain
eldum swá unnýt useless to men
swá hit ǽror wæs. even as before it was[89].
-----
Footnote 87:
Beow. l. 6016 _seq._: compare l. 5583 _seq._
Footnote 88:
Ibid. l. 6320.
Footnote 89:
See the account of the burial of Haraldr Hilditavn in the Fornald.
Savg. i. 387. “Ok áðr enn havgrinn væri aptr lokinn, þá biðr Hríngr
Konúngr til gánga allt stórmenni ok alla Kappa, ok við voru staddir,
at kasta í havginn stórum hríngum ok góðum vápnum, til sæmdr Haraldi
Konúngi Hilditavn; ok eptir þat var aptr byrgði havgrinn vandliga.”
Brynhildr caused the jewels which her father Buðli had given her, to
be burnt with herself and Sigurðr. Sigurd, evid. iii. 65.
-----
When we consider the truly extraordinary number of mounds or _heathen
burial-places_ which are mentioned in the boundaries of Saxon charters,
we cannot doubt that large quantities of the precious metals were thus
committed to the earth. To this superstitious cause others of a more
practical nature were added. In all countries where from want of
commerce and convenient internal communication, or from general
insecurity, there is no profitable investment for capital, hoarding is
largely resorted to by those who may chance to become possessed of
articles of value: we need go no further than Ireland or France for an
example, where one of the most striking signs of the prevalent
barbarism, is the concealment of specie and plate, often
underground[90]. And in cases of sudden invasion, especially by enemies
who had not the habit of sparing religious houses, the earth may have
been resorted to as the safest depository of treasure which it was
impossible to transport[91]. William of Malmesbury attributes to the
fears of the Britons the accumulations which he says were frequently
discovered in his own day[92], and there can be little doubt that this
even among the Saxons tended to increase the quantity of gold and silver
withdrawn from general use. It may have been partly the conviction of
the mischief resulting to society from this habit,—by which gold was
made “eldum swá unnýt swá hit ǽror wæs,”—that caused the very frequent
and strong expression of blame which we find in Anglosaxon works applied
to those who bury treasure, and apparently also to treasure-hunters. It
may be that it was thought impious to violate even the heathen sanctuary
of the dead; at all events, the popular belief was encouraged that
buried treasure was guarded by spells, watched by dragons[93], and
loaded with a curse which would cleave for ever to the discoverer:
hidden gold is in fact always represented as _heathen_ gold, which, we
may readily suppose, could only be purified from its mischievous
qualities by passing through the hands of the universal purifiers in
such cases, the clergy. Strictly however the king was the proper owner
of all treasure-trove, and where the lord of a manor obtained the right
to appropriate it to himself, it could only be by grant from the
representative of the whole state[94]. Probably the sovereigns were not
quite so superstitious as the bulk of their subjects, and certainly they
were much better able to defend their own rights than the simple
landowners in the rural districts. Still in a very great number of cases
they granted away their privilege; probably finding it easier and more
profitable to give it up to those who would have used it, without a
grant, than to undergo the trouble of detecting and punishing them for
taking it unpermitted into their own hands.
-----
Footnote 90:
In Ireland this is so common as to have caused the existence of what
we may call a professional class of treasure-seekers, whose idle,
gambling pursuit is in admirable harmony with the Keltic hatred for
honest, steady labour.
Footnote 91:
To this cause may be attributed the hoards discovered within a few
years at Cuerdale, Hexham, and other places on the borders; and some
perhaps of the numerous _finds_ at Wisby and in Gothland.
Footnote 92:
“Partim sepultis thesauris, quorum plerique in hac aetate defodiuntur,
Romam ad petendas suppetias ire intendunt.” Gest. Reg. i. § 3. It is
well worth the consideration of our antiquarians who have devoted
pains and money to the opening of barrows, how far the notorious
searches which have been made for treasure in these repositories, by
successive generations of Saxons, Danes and Normans, may have
interfered with the _original_ disposition of sepulchral mounds,
cairns and cromlechs. The legend of Gúðlác supplies a Saxon instance
of the highest antiquity. “Wæs ðǽr on ðám ealande sum hláw mycel ofer
eorðan geworht, ðone ylcan men iúgeara for feos wilnunga gedulfon and
brǽcon: ðá was ðǽr on óðre sídan ðæs hláwes gedolfen swylíc mycel
wæterseáð wǽre.” Cap. 4. Godw. Ed. p. 26.
Footnote 93:
Beów. l. 6100. In the North it is difficult to find a hoard without a
dragon, or a dragon without a hoard.
Footnote 94:
Concealment of treasure-trove is a grave offence, inasmuch as it
immediately touches the person and dignity of the king: “De
inventoribus thesauri occultati inventi, haec quidem graviora sunt et
maiora, eo quod personam regis tangunt principaliter. Sunt etiam
crimina aliquantulum minora ... sicut haec; de homicidiis causalibus
et voluntariis,” _seq._ Fleta, lib. 1. cap. 20. § 1, 2, 3 _seq._,
where this offence is assimilated to high-treason, and classed above
all offences against individuals, including murder, rape, arson and
burglary.
-----
PASTUS or CONVIVIUM, _Cyninges feorm_.—One of the royal duties was to
make, in person or by deputy, periodical journeys through the country,
progresses, in the course of which the king visited different districts,
proclaimed his peace, confirmed the rights and privileges of the freemen
or free communities, and heard complaints against the officers of the
executive, if such had arisen during the exercise of their functions.
This, which on its first occurrence immediately after his election was
known in Germany by the name of the _Einritt ins land_, or
_Landbereisung_[95], was probably connected with the principle of the
king’s being the proper guardian of the boundaries: and in the period
when the people had lost the power of electing their king at a general
meeting, it may have served the purpose of giving them an opportunity of
becoming acquainted with the person of their ruler. It is difficult to
say when the system of progresses entirely ceased; but there can be no
doubt that it subsisted in one form or another till a very late period
in England. Under the Anglosaxon law it was by no means a matter of
amusement or caprice, but of positive duty, on the part of the king; and
Royalty _in eyre_ was a necessary condition of a state of society which
would have rejected as a ludicrous tyranny the pretension of any one
city to be the central deposit of all the powers and machinery of
government. The kings of the Merwingian race in France, who probably
retained something of an old priestly character, made these circuits in
the celebrated chariot drawn by oxen, which later and ill-informed
writers have imagined was a sign of their degradation, instead of their
dignity[96]. Of this particular part of the ceremony no trace remains in
England, and it is probable that as occasion served, the king either
rode on horseback, circumnavigated, or was towed or rowed along the
navigable rivers[97]. On these occasions particularly, he had a right to
claim harbour and refection for himself and a certain number of his
suite in various places, principally religious houses. These claims,
which answer in many respects to the _procuratio_ of the ecclesiastical
law, were gradually extended so as to include the royal commissioners or
_Missi_, and in many cases became a fixed charge upon the lands, whether
the king actually visited them or not[98]. Very many of the charters
granted to monasteries record the exemption from them, purchased at a
heavy price by prelates, from his avarice or piety[99]. And as the king
himself gradually ceased to undertake these distant and fatiguing
expeditions, and entrusted to his special messengers the task of seeing
and hearing for him, so they in time established a claim to harbourage
and reception in the same places. This was extended to all public
officers going on the king’s affairs, called Angelcynnes men, Fæsting
men, Rǽde fasting, and the like: to all messengers dispatched on the
public service from one kingdom to another, while there were several
kingdoms; and very probably to those who carried communications from the
ealdormen to the king, when one rule comprehended all the several
districts. And not only for those who travelled on important affairs of
state, and who were very often persons of high birth and distinguished
station, but even for certain servants of the royal household were these
claims enforced. The huntsmen, stable-keepers and falconers of the court
could demand bed and board in the monasteries, where they were often
unwelcome guests enough: and this royal right, no doubt frequently used
by the ealdorman or sheriff as an engine of oppression, was also bought
off at very high prices.
-----
Footnote 95:
For a full account of this see Grimm, Rechtsalt. p. 237.
Footnote 96:
See Grimm, Rechtsalt. p. 262.
Footnote 97:
I have little doubt that, when Beda speaks of the pomp with which
Eádwini of Northumberland was accustomed to ride, he refers to this
ceremony. Hist. Eccl. ii. 16. The well-known tales of Eádgár, rowed by
six kings on the Dee, and Cnut at Ely, will at once occur to the
reader: but has it never occurred to him to ask what Eádgár could
possibly be doing at the one place, or Cnut at the other? See Will.
Malm. Gest. Reg. ii. § 148. The same author tells us of Eádgár: “Omni
aestate, emensa statim Paschali festivitate, naves per omnia littora
coadunari praecipiebat; ad occidentalem insulae partem cum orientali
classe, et illa remensa cum occidentali ad borealem, inde cum boreali
ad orientalem remigare consuetus; pius scilicet explorator, ne quid
piratae turbarent. Hyeme et vere, per omnes provincias equitando,
iudicia potentiorum exquirebat, violati iuris severus ultor; in hoc
iustitiae, in illo fortitudini studens; in utroque reipublicae
utilitatibus consulens.” Gest. Reg. ii. § 156. Flor. Wig. an. 975.
“Cum _more assueto_ rex Cnuto regni fines peragrarat.” Hist. Rames.
Eccl. (Gale, iii. 441.)
Footnote 98:
Cod. Dipl. No. 143. “Necnon et trium annorum ad se pertinentes
pastiones, id est sex convivia, libenter concedendo largitus est.”
Probably they were in arrear, and Offa excused them: but they could
not have been in arrear unless they were payable any under
circumstances; that is, whether the king visited the monastery or not.
I take this to be a standing tax, known under the name of Cyninges
feorm, the king’s farm: it was probably commuted for money, and after
a time rendered certain as to amount. In 814 Cénwulf released the
Bishop of Worcester from a _pastus_ of twelve men which he was bound
to find at his different monasteries, and the exemption was worth an
estate of thirteen hides. Cod. Dipl. No. 203.
Footnote 99:
See Vol. I. p. 294, _seq._ Examples may be found in almost every other
page of the Codex Diplomaticus. See also Hist. Rames. Eccl. 85.
-----
PALFREYS.—Somewhat allied to this was the king’s right to claim the
service of horses or palfreys, for the carriage of effects from one
royal vill to another, or for the furtherance of his messengers or the
public servants[100]. This, which in Hungary still subsists under the
name of Vorspann, was a heavy burthen, as it tended to withdraw horses
from agricultural labour, at the moment when they were most wanted; and
it is to be feared that they were, on this pretext, only too often taken
from the harvesting of the bishop or abbot and his tenants, to secure
that of the ealdorman. This therefore is frequently compounded for, at a
dear rate, under the expression of freedom _a parafrithis_ or
_paraveredis_[101].
-----
Footnote 100:
“Faciebant servitium regis cum equis vel per aquam usque ad
Blidbeream, Reddinges, Sudtone, Besentone: et hoc facientibus dabat
praepositus mercedem non de censu regis, sed de suo.” Domesd. Berks.
Many of these burthens are summed up in a charter of liberties granted
by Eédweard of Wessex at Taunton, to Winchester: “Erat namque antea in
illo supradicto monasterio pastus unius noctis regi, et octo canum, et
unius caniculari pastus, et pastus novem noctium accipitrariis regis,
et quidquid rex vellet inde ducere usque ad Curig vel Willettun [Curry
and Wilton in Somerset] cum plaustris et equis, et si advenae de aliis
regionibus advenirent, debebant ducatum habere ad aliam regalem villam
quae proxima fuisset in illorum via.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. The
Vorspann in Hungary, which is a right to a peasant’s horses on the
production of an order from the county authorities, is generally a
convenience to himself as well as the traveller, who does not object
to pay for much better accommodation than he could obtain from the
ordinary posting establishment. But it is nevertheless a remnant of
barbarism which we may now hope to see vanish, together with every
other obstacle to free communication, under the management of that
most patriotic and enlightened gentleman Count Stephen Szechenji.
Footnote 101:
On the complaint of the clergy of the diocese of Cremona, the emperor
Lothaire decided that _they_ were not bound to supply waggons and
horses for his service. Böhm. Reg. Karol. No. 544.
-----
VIGILIA.—Another right which the king claimed was that of having proper
watch set over him when he came into a district. This, called Vigilia
and Custodia in the Latin authorities, is the Heáfodweard, or _Headward_
of the Saxons. It extended also to the guard kept for him on his hunting
excursions[102]; and coupled with it was his claim to the assistance of
a certain number of men in the hunt itself, either as beaters or
managers of the nets in which deer were taken[103].
-----
Footnote 102:
“Homines de his terris custodiebant regem apud Cantuariam vel apud
Sandwic per tres dies, si rex illuc venisset.” Domesd. Kent. “Quando
rex iacebat in hac civitate, servabant eum vigilantes duodecim homines
de melioribus civitatis. Et cum ibi venationem exerceret, similiter
custodiebant eum cum armis meliores burgenses cabalos habentes.”
Domesd. Shropsh. “Isti debent vigilare in curia domini, cum praesens
fuerit.” Chartul. Evesh. f. 24.
Footnote 103:
“Qui monitus ad stabilitionem venationis non ibat quinquaginta solidos
regi emendabat.” Domesd. Berks.
-----
Sǽweard or coast-guard was also a royal right, performed by the tenants
of those landowners whose estates lay contiguous to the sea. The
miserable condition to which England was frequently reduced, by the
systematic incursions of Scandinavian invaders, rendered this a very
important duty, even in spite of the efforts of successive kings who
early comprehended the destinies of this nation, and entrusted her
defence to maritime armaments. It seems probable that various ports on
the coast of Kent and Norfolk may have been particularly charged with
this burthen, and that the _butsecarlas_ or shipmasters were held bound
to supply craft on emergencies, or even for a regular system of
patrolling. In this may have lain the foundation of the privileges
enjoyed by the Cinque Ports, and similar coast towns, even before the
Norman conquest.
ÆDIFICATIO.—It was further a royal right to claim the aid even of the
freemen towards building and fencing the residence or fortress of the
king: a certain amount of personal labour was thus demanded of them, in
analogy with the _trinoda necessitas_ from which no estate could
possibly be relieved. This kind of _corvée_ was no doubt performed by
tenants whom the landowners settled on their estates, but really was due
from the landowners themselves, except where their estates of bócland
had been expressly freed from the royal burthens. Where the royal vill
was also a district fortification, not even this general exception
relieved the bóclands; fortifications being especially reserved in every
charter, as well as building and repair of bridges.
WRECK.—Doubts have been started upon the subject of wreck, which do not
appear well founded: it is true that circumstances of suspicion attach
to the documents upon which the arguments pro and con were based in the
time of Selden; but we are now in possession of further evidence, of a
nature to remove all difficulty. I have no hesitation in including
Wreck, both jetsam and flotsam, among the Regalia, which were granted
not only to ecclesiastical corporations, but even to private landowners.
The History of Ramsey[104] states that Eádweard the Confessor, whereby
he might show a profitable love to the place, bestowed upon it
Ringstede[105] with the adjacent liberty, and all that the sea cast up,
which is called _Wreck_. We have yet the charter by which this grant is
supposed to have been made[106], and it is very explicit upon the
subject. After conveying lands and other possessions in Huntingdonshire,
he proceeds to give several places, tenements or rents, on the coast of
Norfolk and the Wash, at Wells, and Branchester, etc. In the last-named
place, he adds, “cum omni maris proiectu, quod nos anglicè shipwrec
appellamus.” He further adds, “de meo iure quod mihi soli competebat,
absque ullius reclamatione vel contradictione ista addidi: inprimis
Ringested, cum omnibus ad se pertinentibus, et cum omni maris eiectu,
quod shipwrec appellamus,” etc. Now, although the authenticity of this
charter, in its present form may be open to question, this fact does not
of itself justify us in at once concluding against the privilege claimed
under it. On the other hand the recognized right of the king throughout
the Norman times, and the total absence of any opposition to its
exercise, are _primâ facie_ evidence of its having resided in the crown
before the Conquest[107]. Naufragium and Algarum maris are distinctly
stated to be rights of the crown, in the laws of Henry the First[108],
and we can give examples from other Saxon charters whose genuineness is
beyond dispute. The Saxon Chronicle under the date 1029 records a grant
made by Cnut to Christchurch, Canterbury, of the haven of Sandwich. The
passage is defective, but enough of it remains to prove that it refers
to an original document, of which very early copies are still in our
possession[109]. In this he says:—
“Concedo eidem aecclesiae ad victum monachorum portum de Sanduuíc et
omnes exitus eiusdem aquae, ab utraque parte fluminis cuiuscumque terra
sit, a Pipernæsse usque ad Mearcesfleóte, ita ut natante nave in
flumine, cum plenum fuerit, quam longius de navi potest securis parvula
quam Angli vocant _Tapereax_ super terram proici, ministri aecclesiae
Christi rectitudines accipiant, ... Si quid autem in magno mari extra
portum, quantum mare plus se retraxerit, et adhuc statura unius hominis
tenentis lignum quod Angli nominant _spreot_, et tendentis ante se
quantum potest, monachorum est. Quicquid etiam ex hac parte medietatis
maris inventum et delatum ad Sanduuíc fuerit, sive sit vestimentum, sive
rete, arma, ferrum, aurum, argentum, medietas monachorum erit, alia pars
remanebit inventoribus.”
-----
Footnote 104:
Hist. Rams. 106.
Footnote 105:
There are two places of this name on the coast of the Wash near
Burnham Market in Norfolk. The one intended is most probably Ringstead
St. Andrew’s.
Footnote 106:
Cod. Dipl. No. 809.
Footnote 107:
See Bracton, ii. 5. § 7. Westm. i. cap. 4. Stat. Praerog. Reg. cap.
11. Also 17. Edw. II. cap. 11. Rot. Chart. 20. Hen. III. m. 3. and 14.
Edw. III. m. 6. Pat. 42. Hen. III. m. 1. dorso. See also Sir W.
Stamford, Expos. King’s Prerog. fol 37, b.
Footnote 108:
Leg. Hen. I. 10. § 1. Ducange reads _laganum_ for _algarum_.
Footnote 109:
Cod. Dipl. No. 737, where it is printed both in Latin and Saxon.
-----
These words are quite wide enough to carry _wreck_, although this be not
distinctly stated by name. But Eádweard the Confessor furnishes us with
still further evidence. In a writ addressed by him to Ælfwold bishop of
Sherborne, earl Harold, and Ælfred the sheriff of Dorsetshire, he
says[110]: “Eádweard the king greets well Bishop Ælfwold, earl Harold,
Ælfred the sheriff and all my thanes in Dorsetshire: and I tell you that
Urk my húscarl is to have his strand, over against his own land, freely
and well throughout, up from sea, and out on sea, and whatsoever may be
driven to his strand, by my full command.”
-----
Footnote 110:
Cod. Dipl. No. 871.
-----
In this, as in many other cases, the principle seems to be, that that
which has no ostensible owner is the property of the state, or of the
king as its representative; and hence, in the later construction of the
law of _wreck_, it was necessary that an absolute abandonment should
have taken place, before wreck could be claimed. If there were _life_ on
board, even a dog, cat, or lower animal, there could legally be no
wreck, and this provision of the law has very often led to the
perpetration of the most savage murders, as a precaution lest any living
creature, by reaching the strand, should defeat the avarice of its
barbarous owners. From the little evidence we can now recover, of the
Saxon practice, this limitation does not appear to have existed.
MINT.—The coinage has always in every country been numbered among the
regalia, and this land appears to make no exception. Although the Witena
gemót, in conjunction with the king, exercise a general superintendence
over this most important branch of the public affairs, still certain
details remain which belong to the king exclusively. The number of
moneyers generally in the various localities, the necessity of having
one standard over all the realm, the penalties for unfaithful discharge
of the moneyer’s duty, or for fraudulently imitating the money of the
state, and similar enactments, might be determined by the great council
of the realm; but the coin bore the image and superscription of the
king, he received a description of _seigneuriage_ upon delivery of the
dies, and he changed the coin when it seemed to require renovation or
improvement. Thus we learn that Eádgár called in the old, and issued a
new coinage, in the year 975, because it had become so clipped as to
fall far short of the standard weight[111]: and in the Domesday record,
the dues payable to the king on each change of die are noticed[112]. It
seems clear that this royal right had been assumed by private
individuals, or granted to them, like other royalties, previous to the
time of Æðelrǽd: that prince enacted not only that there should be no
moneyers beside the kings, but also that their number should be
altogether diminished[113]; by which we may suppose that it was his
intention to do away with the mints which the bishops had before
possessed legally[114] in various towns, and which from the passages
cited out of Domesday book, evidently continued to subsist, in spite of
the provisions of the Council of Wantage. But if the coins themselves
are to be trusted, we may conclude that on some occasions this right had
been granted by the crown to others than the clergy. One piece still
bears the name and head of Cyneðrýð, probably Offa’s queen[115]; and
another with the impress of Hereberht, was probably coined by a Kentish
duke. Both these cases, which are in themselves doubtful, are a hundred
years earlier than Æðelrǽd’s law, above quoted.
-----
Footnote 111:
Matt. Westm. an. 975.
Footnote 112:
“Ibi erant duo monetarii; quisque eorum reddebat regi unam marcam
argenti, et viginti solidos, quando moneta vertebatur.” Domesd.
Dorset. “Septem monetarii erant ibi; unus ex his erat monetarius
episcopi. Quando moneta vertebatur, dabat quisque eorum octodecim
solidos pro cuneis recipiendis, et ex eo die quo redibant usque ad
unum mensem, dabat quisque eorum regi viginti solidos, et similiter
habebat episcopus de suo monetario. In civitate Wirecestre habuit rex
Edwardus hanc consuetudinem. Quando moneta vertebatur, quisque
monetarius dabat XX solidos ad Londoniam, pro cuneis monetae
accipiendis.” Domesd. Worcester. See also Domesd. Hereford.
Footnote 113:
Æðelr. iii. § 8; iv. § 9. Thorpe, i. 296, 303.
Footnote 114:
Æðelst. i. § 14. Thorpe, i. 206.
Footnote 115:
Or perhaps his relative, the abbess of Bedford, for it is difficult to
conceive how during coverture, the queen could have coined, and proof
is wanting that she was ever regent of his kingdom.
-----
MINES.—Mines and minerals are also among the regalia of a German king,
and were so in England. The cases which principally come under our
observation in the charters are salt-works and lead-mines; but in a
document of the year 689, which however is not totally free from
suspicion, Osuuini of Kent grants to Rochester a ploughland at Lyminge
in Kent, in which he says there is a mine of iron[116]. In 716, Æðelbald
of Mercia granted certain salt-works near the river Salwarpe at Lootwíc
in Worcestershire, in exchange however for others to the north of the
river[117]. In the same year he granted a hid of land in Saltwych, _vico
emptorio salis_, to Evesham[118]. In 732, Æðelberht of Kent gave abbot
Dun a quarter of a ploughland at Lyminge, where there were salt-works,
that is evaporating pans[119], and added to it a grant of a hundred
loads of wood per annum, necessary to the operation. In 738 Eádberht of
Kent includes salt-works in a grant to Rochester[120], and similarly in
812, 814, Coenuulf, in grants to Canterbury[121]. In 833 Ecgberht gave
salt-works in Kent, and a hundred and twenty loads of wood from the
weald of Andred, to support the fires[122]. Three years later Wigláf of
Mercia confirmed the liberties of Hanbury in Worcestershire, with all
its possessions, including salt-wells and lead-works[123]. In 863,
Æðelberht granted salt-works in Kent to Æðelred, with four waggons going
for six weeks into the royal forest[124]. In 938, Æðelstán gave to
Taunton three híds of land, and salt-pans[125].
-----
Footnote 116:
Cod. Dipl. No. 30. So likewise I imagine the ísengráfas (eisengruben)
of Cod. Dipl. No. 1118 to be iron-mines.
Footnote 117:
Cod. Dipl. No. 67. “Aliquam agelli partem in qua sal confici solet ...
ad construendos tres casulos et sex caminos ... sex alios ... caminos
in duobus casulis, in quibus similiter sal conficitur, vicarios
accipiens.”
Footnote 118:
Cod. Dipl. No. 68.
Footnote 119:
Cod. Dipl. No. 77. “Quarta pars aratri ... sali coquendo accommoda....
Et insuper addidi huic donationi ... in omni anno centum plaustra
onusta de lignis ad coquendum sal.”
Footnote 120:
Cod. Dipl. No. 85.
Footnote 121:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 199, 201.
Footnote 122:
Cod. Dipl. No. 234. “Et in eodem loco sali coquenda iuxta Limenae, et
in silva ubi dicitur Andred, centum viginti plaustra ad coquendum
sal.”
Footnote 123:
Cod. Dipl. No. 237, “Cum putheis salis et fornacibus plumbis.”
Footnote 124:
Cod. Dipl. No. 288. “Unamque salis coquinariam, hoc est án
sealternsteall, and ðer cota to, in ilia loco ubi nominatur Herewíc,
et quatuor carris transductionem in silba regis sex ebdomades a die
Pentecosten hubi alteri homines silbam cedunt, hoc est in regis
communione.”
Footnote 125:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 374. (cf. 1002). “Et tres [mansas] in loco qui Cearn
nuncupatur ad coquendam salis copiam.” In 854, Æðelwulf mentions
_salinaria_ in a grant to the same place. Cod. Dipl. No. 1051.
-----
The king in all these cases had possessed a right to levy certain dues
at the pans or the pit’s mouth, upon the waggons as they stood, and upon
the load being placed in them: these dues were respectively called the
wǽnscilling and seámpending, literally _wainshilling_ and _loadpenny_,
and were entirely independent of the rent which might be reserved by the
landlord for the use of the ground, whether he were the king or a
private person. And immunity from these dues might also be granted by
the crown, and was so granted. In 884, Æðelred, duke of Mercia, who
acted as a viceroy in that new portion of Ælfred’s kingdom, and
exercised therein all the royal rights as fully as any king did in his
own territories, gave Æðelwulf five híds at Humbleton, and licence to
have six salt-pans, free from all the dues of king, duke or public
officer, but still reserving the rights of the landlord[126]. But the
same prince, about the same period, when conferring various royalties
upon the cathedral of Worcester, retained the king’s dues at the pans in
Saltwíc[127].
-----
Footnote 126:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1066. “Ego Æðelred, divina largiente gratia principatu
et dominio gentis Merciorum subfultus, donatione trado Æðelwulfo
terrain quinque manentium in loco qui dicitur Hymeltun ... salisque
coctionibus, id est, sex vascula possint praeparari salva libertate,
sine aliquo tributo dominatoris gentis praedictae, sive ducum,
iudicumve et praesidum, id est statione sive inoneratione plaustrorum,
nisi solo illi qui huic praedictae terrae Hymeltune dominus existat
... ut haec traditio, sive in terra praedicta, sive in vico salis,
absque omni censu atque tributo perpetualiter libera permaneat.”
Footnote 127:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1075. “Bútan ðæt se wægnscilling and se seámpending
gonge tó ðæs cyninges handa, swá he ealning dyde æt Saltwíc:” except
that the wainshilling and loadpenny (“statio et inoneratio
plaustrorum”) shall go to the king’s hand, as they always did, at
Saltwíc.
-----
The peculiar qualities of salt, which make it a necessary of life to
man, have always given a special character to the springs and soils
which contain it. The pagan Germans considered the salt-springs holy,
and waged wars of extermination for their possession[128]; and it is not
improbable that they may generally have belonged to the exclusive
property of the priesthood. If so, we can readily understand how, upon
the introduction of Christianity, they would naturally pass into the
hands of the king: and this seems to throw light upon the origin of this
royalty, which Eichhorn himself looks upon as difficult of
explanation[129]. Many of the royal rights were unquestionably inherited
from the pagan priesthood.
-----
Footnote 128:
Tacit. Ann. xiii. 57. “Eadem aestate inter Hermunduros Cattosque
certatum magno praelio, dum flumen gignendo sale fecundum et
conterminum vi trahunt, super libidinem cuncta armis agendi religione
insita, eos maxime locos propinquare coelo, precesque mortalium a deis
nusquam propius audiri.”
Footnote 129:
Deut. Staatsr. ii. 426. § 297.
-----
MARKET.—The grant of a market, with power to levy tolls and exercise the
police therein, was also a royalty, in the period of the consolidated
monarchy; and to this head may be added the right to keep a private beam
or steelyard, _trutina_ or _tróne_, yard-measure, and bushel. Of these
the charters supply examples. The last-named rights were purchased in
857 by bishop Alhhun of Worcester, from Burgred, who, as king of Mercia,
disposed of them to him, with a small plot of land in London. The price
paid was sixty shillings, or a pound, to Ceólmund, the owner of the
land, a like sum to the king, and an annual rent of twelve shillings to
the latter[130]. Thirty-two years later, Ælfred and Æðelred of Mercia
gave another small plot in the same city to Werfrið, also bishop of
Worcester. He was to have a steelyard, and a measure, both for buying
and selling, or for his own private use. And if any of his people dealt
in the street or on the bank where the sales took place, the king was to
have his toll: but if the bargain was struck within the bishop’s
_curtis_, he was to have the toll[131].
-----
Footnote 130:
Cod. Dipl. No. 280. “Habeat intus liberaliter modium et pondera et
mensura[m], sicut in porto mos est ad fruendum.”
Footnote 131:
Cod. Dipl. No. 316. “Et intro urnam et trutinam ad mensurandum in
emendo sive vendendo ad usum, sive ad necessitatem propriam et liberam
omnimodis habeat.... Si autem foris vel in strata publica seu in ripa
emptorali quislibet suorum mercaverit, iuxta quod rectum sit,
thelonium ad manum regis subeat: quod si intus in curte praedicta
quislibet emerit vel vendiderit, thelonium debitum ad manum episcopi
supramemorati reddatur.”
-----
In 904 Eádweard gave a market in Taunton to the bishop of Winchester,
with the toll therefrom arising, by the name of “ðæs túnes cýping”[132]:
and a few years earlier Æðelred of Mercia granted half the market-dues
and fines at Worcester to the bishop of that city[133]. The Frankish
emperors possessed and exercised the same right[134]. The strict law of
the Anglosaxons, which treated all strangers with harshness, was
unfavourable to the chapmen or pedlars, who in thinly-peopled countries
are relied upon to bring markets home to every one’s door: and it must
be admitted that, where internal communication is yet imperfect,
stringent measures are necessary to guard against the disposal of goods
improperly obtained. The details of these measures belong to another
part of this work, but it is necessary to call attention here to the
endeavour on the part of the authorities, to confine all bargaining as
much as possible to towns and walled places[135]: the small tolls
payable on these occasions to the proper officers were a reasonable
sacrifice for the sake of a certificate of fair dealing, and the assured
warranty of what the Saxon law calls _unlying_ witnesses. The king, as
general conservator of the peace, had this royalty, and, as we have
seen, granted it in various towns to those who would be able and willing
to perform the duties which it implied.
-----
Footnote 132:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. “Praedictae etiam villae mercimonium, quod
anglicè ðæs túnes cýping appellatur, censusque omnus civilis sanctae
dei aecclesiae in Wintonia civitate, sine retractionis obstaculo cum
omnibus commodis aeternaliter deserviat.”
Footnote 133:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1075.
Footnote 134:
See Böhmer, Regest. Karol. Nos. 439, 628, 700, 2065, 2078.
Footnote 135:
Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 10, 12, 13; iii. § 2; v. § 10. Eádm. i. § 5.
Eádg. Sup. § 6. Æðelb. i. § 3. Cnut, ii. § 24. Eádw. Conf. § 38. Wil.
Conq. i. § 45; iii. § 10, 11.
-----
TOLL.—Closely connected with this are tolls, which, here as well as in
Germany, the king claimed in harbours, and upon transport by roads and
by navigable streams[136], and which he either remitted altogether in
favour of certain favoured persons or empowered them to take; thus, in
the first instance, creating for them a commercial monopoly of the
greatest value, by enabling them to enter the market on terms of
advantage. As early as the eighth century we find Æðelbald of Mercia
granting to a monastery in Thanet, exemption from toll throughout his
kingdom for one ship of burthen[137], remitting to Milræd, bishop of
Worcester, the dues upon two ships, payable in the port of London[138],
and to the bishop of Rochester the toll of one ship, whether his own or
another’s, in the same port[139]. And the grant to St. Mildðrýð in
Thanet was confirmed for himself, and increased by Eádberht of Kent in
761, and extended to London, Fordwíc and Seorre[140]; and if the actual
ship to which this privilege was attached should become unseaworthy
through age, or perish by shipwreck, a new one was to receive the same
favour.
-----
Footnote 136:
See Böhmer, Regest. Karol. Nos. 7, 14, 28, 31, 67, 71, 83, 89, 97,
111, 163, 206, 217, 220, 227, 231, 240, 252, 260, 272, 283, 288, 304,
308, 398, 415, 461, 463, 559, 561, 564, 566, 586, 592, 593, 605, 652,
693, 739, 787, 837, 885, 1528, 2067, 2073. These charters contain full
particulars relative to the levy, release and grant of tolls in the
Frankish empire.
Footnote 137:
Cod. Dipl. No. 84. “Navis onustae transvectionis censum qui a
theloneariis nostris tributaria exactione impetitur, perdonans
attribuo; ut ubique in regno nostro libera de omni regali fiscu et
tributo maneat.”
Footnote 138:
Cod. Dipl. No. 95. “Ðá forgeofende ic him álýfde alle nédbade twégra
sceopa ða ðe ðǽr ábædde beóð fram ðám nédbaderum in Lundentúnes hýðe;
ond næfre ic né míne lastweardas né ða nédbaderas geþristlǽcen ðæt heó
hit onwenden oððe ðon wiðgǽn.” See similar exemptions in Cod. Dipl.
Nos. 97, 98, 112.
Footnote 139:
Cod. Dipl. No. 78. “Indico me dedisse ... unius navis, sive illa
propria ipsius, sive cuiuslibet alterius hominis sit, incessum, id est
vectigal, mihi et antecessoribus meis iure regio in portu Lundoniae
usque hactenus conpetentem.” And this was confirmed a century later by
Berhtwulf of Mercia.
Footnote 140:
Cod. Dipl. No. 106. After mentioning one ship, relieved from toll in
London, he continues: “Alterius vero ... omne tributum atque vectigal
concedimus, quod etiam a thelonariis nostris iuste impetitur publicis
in locis, qui appellantur Forduuíc et Seorre.”
-----
A common privilege in charters of liberties is Tol, but this probably
refers rather to a right of taking it upon sales within the
jurisdiction, than properly to dues levied on transport. Such however
are occasionally mentioned as matter of grant. Eádmund Irensída,
conveying lands which had belonged to Sigeferð (whose widow he had
married), includes toll upon water-carriage among his rights[141]. Cnut
gave the harbour and tolls of Sandwich to Christchurch Canterbury[142],
together with a ferry. This right, under Harald Haranfót, was attempted
to be interfered with by the abbot of St. Augustine’s, who even at last
went so far as to dig a canal in order to divert the channel of trade;
but the monks of Christchurch nevertheless succeeded in retaining their
property[143]. These examples, although not very numerous, are
sufficient to show that the Anglosaxon kings fully possessed the right
of levying and granting toll, as well as exemption from its payment; and
they are sufficiently confirmed by Domesday and the laws of the kings
themselves[144].
Footnote 141:
Cod. Dipl. No. 726. “Ita habeant sicut Siuerthus habuit in vita, in
longitudine et in latitudine, in magnis et in modicis rebus, campis,
pascuis, pratis, silvis, theloneum aquarum, piscationem in paludibus.”
Footnote 142:
Cod. Dipl. No. 737. “Eorum est navicula et transfretatio portus, et
theloneum omnium navium, cuiuscunque sit et undecumque veniat, quae ad
praedictum portum et ad Sanduuíc venerint.”
Footnote 143:
Cod. Dipl. No. 758. The story is altogether so good, and so well told,
that it may be given here entire.
“This writing witnesseth how Harold the king caused Sandwich to be
ridden about to his own hand: and he kept it for himself well nigh a
twelvemonth, and at any rate fully two herring-seasons, all against
God’s will, and against the Saints’ who lie at Christchurch, as it
turned out ill enough for him afterwards. And during this time there
went Ælfstán the abbot of St. Augustine’s, and got, with his lying
flatteries and his gold and silver, all secretly from Steorra who was
the king’s redesman, a right to the third penny of the toll at
Sandwich. Now when archbishop Eádsige and all the brotherhood at
Christchurch learnt this, they took counsel together, that they should
send Ælfgár, the monk of Christchurch, to king Harold. Now the king
lay at Oxford very ill, so that his life was despaired of; and there
were with him Lýfing, bishop of Devonshire, and Tancred the monk. Then
came the messenger from Christchurch to the bishop; and he forth at
once to the king, and with him Ælfgár the monk, Osweard of
Harrietsham, and Tancred; and they told the king that he had deeply
sinned against Christ, in ever daring to take back anything from
Christchurch which his predecessors had given: and then they told him
about Sandwich, how it had been ridden about to his hand. There lay
the king and turned quite black in the face at their tale, and swore
by God Almighty and all his saints to boot, that it never was either
his rede or his deed, that Sandwich should be taken from Christchurch.
So it was plain enough that it was other peoples’ and not king
Harold’s contrivance: and to say the truth, Ælfstán the abbot’s
counsel was with the men who counselled it out of Christchurch. Then
king Harold sent Ælfgár the monk back to archbishop Eádsige and all
the monks at Christchurch, and gave them God’s greeting and his own,
and commanded that they should have Sandwich, into Christchurch, as
fully and wholly as they had ever had it in any king’s day, both in
rent, in stream, on strand, in fines, and in everything which any king
had ever most fully possessed before them. Now when abbot Ælfstán
heard of this, he came to archbishop Eádsige and begged his support
with the brotherhood, about the third penny: and away they both went
to all the brotherhood and begged the Convent that abbot Ælfstán might
be allowed the third penny of the toll, and he to give the Convent ten
pounds. But they refused it altogether throughout, and said it was no
use asking: and withal archbishop Eádsige backed him much more than he
did the Convent. And when he could not get on in this way, he asked
leave to make a wharf over against Mildðrýð’s acre, opposite the ferry
(?) to keep, but all the Convent decidedly refused this: and
archbishop Eádsige left it all to their own decision. Then abbot
Ælfstán set to, with a great help, and let dig a great canal at
Hyppeles fleót, hoping that craft would lie there, just as they did at
Sandwich: however he got no good by it; for he laboureth in vain who
laboureth against Christ’s will. So the abbot left it in this state,
and the Convent took to their own, in God’s witness, and Saint Mary’s,
and all the Saints’ who rest at Christchurch and Saint Augustine’s.
This is all true, believe it who will: abbot Ælfstán never got the
third penny at Sandwich in any other way. God’s blessing be with us
all now and for ever more! Amen.”
Footnote 144:
The following is the tariff of tolls levied at Billingsgate. Æðelr.
iv. § 2. “De telonio dando ad Bylingesgate. Ad Billingesgate, si
advenisset una navicula, unus obolus telonei dabatur: si maior et
haberet siglas, unus denarius. Si adveniat ceól vel hulcus, et ibi
iaceat, quatuor denarios ad teloneum. De navi plena lignorum, unum
lignum ad teloneum. In ebdomada panum telonium tribus diebus, die
dominica, et die Martis et die Jovis. Qui ad pontem venisset cum uno
bato, ubi piscis inesset, ipse mango unum obolum dabat in telonium, et
de una maiori nave, unum denarium. Homines de Rotomago, qui veniebant
cum vino vel craspice, dabant rectitudinem sex solidorum de magna
navi, et vicesimum frustum de ipso craspice. Flandrenses et
Ponteienses et Normannia et Francia, monstrabant res suas et
extolneabant. Hogge et Leodium et Nivella, qui per terras ibant,
ostensionem dabant et teloneum. Et homines Imperatoris, qui veniebant
in navibus suis, bonarum legum digni tenebantur, sicut et nos. Praeter
discarcatam lanum et dissutum unctum et tres porcos vivos licebat eis
emere in naves suas; et non licebat eis aliquod foreceápum facere
burhmannis; et dare telonium suum, et in sancto Natali Domini duos
grisengos pannos, et unum brunum, et decem libras piperis, et
cirotecas quinque hominum, et duos caballinos tonellos aceto plenos,
et totidem in Pascha: de dosseris cum gallinis, una gallina telonei,
et de uno dossero cum ovis, quinque ova telonei, si veniant ad
mercatum. Smeremangestre, quae mangonant in caseo et butiro,
quatuordecim diebus ante Natale Domini, unum denarium, et septem
diebus post Natale, unum alium.”
-----
FOREST.—It may be doubted whether the right of Forest was at any time
carried among the Saxons to the extent which made it so hateful a means
of oppression under the Norman kings; but there can be no question that
it was one of the royalties. In every part of Germany the _bannum
Forestae_ or _Forstbann_ was so[145], and even to this day is as much an
object of popular dislike in some districts as it ever was among our
forefathers. In countries which depend much upon the immediate produce
of the soil for support, hunting is not a mere amusement to be purchased
or rented by the rich as a luxury, but a very necessary means of
increasing the supply of food; and where coal-mines have not been
worked, the forest alone or the turf-heap can furnish the means of
securing warmth, as indispensable a necessary of life as bread or flesh:
we have seen moreover that it was essential to the comfort of a Saxon
family to possess a right of masting cattle in the neighbouring woods.
-----
Footnote 145:
Eichhorn, Deut. Staatsr. i. 813, § 199.
-----
In the original division of the lands large tracts of forest may have
fallen to the king’s share, which he could dispose of as his private
property. Much of the folcland also may have been covered with wood, and
here and there may have lain sacred groves not included within the
limits of any community[146]. It is not unreasonable to suppose that all
these were gradually brought under the immediate influence and authority
of the king; and that when once the royal power had so far advanced as
to reduce the scír-geréfa to the condition of a crown officer, the
shire-marks or forests would also become subject to the royal
_ban_[147]. That very considerable forest rights still continued to
subsist in the hands of the free men, in their communities, may be
admitted, and is evidence of the firm foundation for popular liberty
which the old Mark-organization laid. But even in these, the possession
was not left totally undisturbed, and the public officers, the king,
ealdorman and geréfa appear to have gradually made various usurpations
valid.
-----
Footnote 146:
“Lucos et nemora consecrant.” Tac. Germ. ix.
Footnote 147:
As early as 825 we find questions of pasture contested by the
swángeréfa as an officer of the ealdorman. Cod. Dipl. No. 219. The
scírholt mentioned in this document would seem to have been the
shire-forest or public wood of the county; hence probably a royal
ban-forest, subject to the royal officer, the ealdorman.
-----
Over his private forests the king naturally exercised all the rights of
absolute ownership; and as his _ban_ ultimately implies this, at least
in theory, it becomes difficult to distinguish those which he dealt with
as _dominus fundi_, from those in which he acted _iure regali_. That he
reserved the vert and venison in some of them, and _preserved_ with a
strictness worthy of more enlightened ages, is clear from the severe
provisions of Cnut’s Constitutiones de Foresta[148]. According to this
important document, the forest law was as follows. In every county there
were to be four thanes, whose business it was, under the title of
Head-foresters, _primarii forestae_, to hold plea of all offences
touching the forest, and having the _ban_ or power of punishing for such
offences. Under them were sixteen lesser thanes, but gentlemen, whose
business it was to look after the vert and venison; and these had
nothing to do with the process in the forest court. To each of the
sixteen were assigned two yeomen, who were to keep watch at night over
the vert and venison, and do the necessary menial services: but they
were freemen, and even employment in the forest gave freedom. All the
expenses of these officers were defrayed by the king, and he further
supplied the outfit of the several classes: to the head-foresters,
yearly, two horses, one saddled, a sword, five lances, a spear, a shield
and two hundred shillings of silver: to the second class, one horse, one
lance, one shield and sixty shillings: to the yeomen, a lance, a
cross-bow and fifteen shillings. All these persons were quit and free of
all summonses, county-courts, and military dues: but the two secondary
classes owed suit and surface to the court of the _primarii_ (Swánmót),
which held plea and gave judgment in their suits: in those of the
_primarii_ themselves, the king was sole judge. The court of the Forest
was to be held four times a year, and was empowered to administer the
triple ordeal, and generally to exercise such a jurisdiction as belonged
only to the higher and royal courts. The persons of the head-foresters
were guarded by severe penalties; violence offered to them was punished
in a free man with loss of liberty, in a serf with loss of the hand; and
a second offence entailed the penalty of death.
-----
Footnote 148:
See these in Thorpe, i. 426.
-----
The offences against the forest-law were various and of very different
degrees: the _ferae forestae_ were not nearly so sacred as the _ferae
regales_, and as for the _vert_, it was of so little regard that the law
hardly contemplated it, always excepting the breaking the king’s chace.
To hunt a beast of the forest (_fera forestae_), either voluntarily or
intentionally, till it panted, was punished in a free man by a fine of
ten shillings: in one of a lower grade[149], by a fine of twenty: in a
serf, by a flogging. But if it were a royal beast (_fera regalis_) which
the English call a stag, the punishments were to be respectively, one
and two years servitude, and for the serf, outlawry. If they killed it,
the free man was to lose _scutum libertatis_[150], the next man his
liberty, and the serf his life. Bishops, abbots and barons were not to
be vexed with prosecutions for hunting, except they killed stags: in
that case they were liable to such penalty as the king willed. Besides
the beasts of the forest, the roebuck, hare and rabbit were protected by
fines. Wolves and foxes were neither beasts of the forest nor chace, and
might be killed with impunity, but not within the bounds of the forest,
as that would be a breaking of the chace; nor was the boar considered a
beast of venery. No one was to cut brushwood without permission of the
_primarius_, under a penalty; and he that felled a tree which supplied
food for the beasts, was to pay a fine of twenty shillings over and
above that for breaking the chace. Every free man might have his own
vert and venison on his own lands, but without a chace; and no man of
the middle class (_mediocris_) was to keep greyhounds. A gentleman
(_liberalis_[151]) might, but he must first have the knee-sinew cut in
presence of the head-forester, if he lived within ten miles of the
forest: if his dogs came within that distance, he was to be fined a
shilling a mile: if the dog entered the precincts of the forest, his
master was to pay ten shillings. Other kinds of dogs, not considered
dangerous, might be kept without mutilation; but if they became mad and
by the negligence of their masters went wandering about, heavy fines
were incurred. If found within the bounds of the forest, the fine was
two hundred shillings: if such a rabid dog bit a beast of the forest,
the fine rose to twelve hundred: but if a royal beast was bitten, the
crime was of the deepest dye.
-----
Footnote 149:
_Illiberalis_; perhaps a freedman, or a free man not a landowner. The
distinctions here are _liber_, _illiberalis_, _servus_.
Footnote 150:
This must denote _gentry_, something more than mere freedom.
Footnote 151:
The _mediocris_ is defined as twýhynde, the _liberalis_ as twelfhynde.
§ 33, 34.
-----
Such is the forest legislation of Cnut, and its severity is of itself
evidence how much the power of the king had become extended at the
commencement of the eleventh century. It is clear that he deals with all
forests as having certain paramount rights therein, and it seems
probable that this organization was intended to be established all over
England. Still it is observable that he gives certain rights of hunting
to all his nobles, reserving only the stags to himself, and that he
allows every freeman to hunt upon his own property, so that he does not
interfere with the royal chaces[152]. We may however infer that at an
earlier period the matter was not regarded so strictly. A passage has
been already cited[153] where Ælfred implies that a dependent living
upon lǽnland could support himself by hunting and fishing, till he got
bócland of his own. The bishops possessed the right in their
forests—whether _proprio iure_ or by royal grant, I will not venture to
decide—as early as the ninth century[154], and still retained it in the
tenth[155]. And while the communities were yet free it is absurd to
suppose that they allowed any one to interfere with this pursuit, so
attractive to every Teuton, so healthy, so calculated to practise his
eye and limbs for the sterner duties of warfare, and so useful to
recruit a larder not over well stored with various or delicate viands.
-----
Footnote 152:
This regulation was very likely forced upon him by his Witan, inasmuch
as it is also recorded in his laws, § 81. “Every one shall be entitled
to his hunting both in wood and field, upon his own property. And let
every one forego my hunting: take notice where I will have it
untrespassed upon, on penalty of the full wíte.”
Footnote 153:
See Vol. I. p. 312.
Footnote 154:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1086. Bishop Denewulf gave Ælfred forty hides at
Alresford, loaded with various conditions: among them, that his men
should be ready “ge tó ripe ge tó hunt[n]oðe,” that is at the bishop’s
harvest and hunting.
Footnote 155:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1287. Oswald bishop of Worcester, stating the terms on
which he let the lands of his see, includes among them the services of
his tenants at his hunting: “Sed et venationis sepem domini episcopi
[clearly _a park_] ultronei ad aedificandum repperiantur, suaque,
quandocumque domino episcopo libuerit, venabula destinent venatum.”
-----
However this may have been with the game, it is certain that the most
important privileges were those of masting swine, and cutting timber or
brushwood in the forests[156]. Grants to this effect are common, and it
is plain that a considerable quantity of woods were in the hands of
corporations, and even of private individuals, as well as of the Crown.
How they came into private hands is not clear; some perhaps by bargain
and sale, some by inheritance, some by grant, some no doubt by
usurpation. The most powerful markman may at last have contrived to
appropriate to himself the ownership of what woodland remained, though
he was still compelled to permit the hereditary axe to ring in the
forest[157]; and all experience shows that both here and in Germany
monasteries were often founded in the bosom of woods, granted for
religious purposes, out of what perhaps had once endowed an earlier
religion, and which supplied at once building materials, fuel and
support for cattle[158]. But even in these, it seems that the king, the
duke and the geréfa interfered, claiming a right to pasture certain
numbers of their own swine or cattle in them, and to give this privilege
to others.
-----
Footnote 156:
The importance of pannage or masting was such as to cause the
introduction of a clause guarding it, in the Charta de Foresta,—a
document considered by our forefathers as hardly less important than
Magna Charta itself: see § 9. Domesday usually notes the amount of
pannage in an estate, and Fleta (Bk. ii. cap. 80) thinks it necessary
to devote a chapter to the subject.
Footnote 157:
The Oldsaxons in Westphalia called a distinguished class of persons
Erfexe, or Hereditary axes, from their right to hew wood in the Mark.
Möser (Osnab. i. 19) gives an erroneous derivation for this name, but
Grimm corrects him: Deut. Rechtsalt. 504.
Footnote 158:
“Dunhelmum veniens, locum quidem natura munitum, sed non facile
habitabilem invenit, quoniam densissima eum silva totum occupabat,”
etc. Transl. Sci. Cuðb. Bed. Hist. vol. ii. p. 302. The earliest
grants of land on which these establishments were placed, usually
state the land to be _silva_ or _silvatica_.
-----
In 845, Æðelwulf gave pasture to Badonoð for his cattle with the king’s
beasts, apparently in the pastures of the town of Canterbury[159]. In
855, the same king gave his thane Dun a tenement in Rochester, together
with two waggon-loads of wood from the king’s forest, and common in the
marsh[160]. In 839 he licensed for Dudda two waggons to the common wood,
probably Blean[161]; in 772, Offa granted lands to Abbot Æðelnoð, and
added a perpetual right of pasture and masting in the royal wood,
together with licence for one goat to go with the royal flock in the
forest of Sænling[162]. Numerous other examples are supplied by the
charters, which may be classed under the following heads: first, royal
forests, as Sænling, Blean, Andred and the like, called _silvae
regales_, and in which the king granted timber, common of mast and
pasture or estovers: secondly, forest appertaining to cities and
communities (ceasterwara-weald, burhwara-weald, _silva communis_), in
which the king granted commons: thirdly, small woods, appurtenant to and
part of estates, but not named, and the enjoyment of which is conveyed
in the general terms of the grant, as _terram cum communibus
utilitatibus, pascuis, pratis, silvis, piscariis_, etc.: lastly, private
forests or commons of forest specially named as appurtenant to
particular estates, or given by favour of the king to the tenant of
those estates. To all these heads ample references will be found in the
note below[163]. His right to deal at pleasure with the _silvae regales_
requires no particular notice, but the grants of pasture and timber in
the forests of cities and communities[164] can only be explained by the
assumption of a paramount royalty in the Crown. And that this was
exercised in the private forests of monasteries, also appears from
exemptions sometimes purchased by them. In 706, Æðelweard of the Hwiccas
consented to confine his right of pasture to one herd of swine, and that
only in years when mast was abundant, in the forests belonging to
Evesham; and he released them from all claims of princes and officers,
except this one of his own[165]. Similarly, with regard to timber,
Ecgberht in 835 gave an immunity to Abingdon, against the claim of king
or prince, to take large or small wood for his buildings from the
forests of the monastery[166]. This right of the king to timber for
public purposes was maintained and claimed till the time of the
rebellion, and was a fertile source of malversation and extortion[167].
-----
Footnote 159:
Cod. Dipl. No. 259.
Footnote 160:
Cod. Dipl. No. 276. “Et decem carros cum silvo (_sic_) honestos in
monte regis, et communionem marisci quae ad illam villam antiquitus
cum recto pertinebat.”
Footnote 161:
Cod. Dipl. No. 241. “Duobusque carris dabo licentiam silfam ad illas
secundum antiquam consuetudinem et constituidem (_sic_) in aestate
perferendam in commune silfa quod nos saxonicae in geménnisse
dicimus.”
Footnote 162:
Cod. Dipl. No. 119. “Et ad pascendum porcos et pecora, et iumenta in
silva regali aeternaliter perdono; et unius caprae licentiam in silva
quae vocatur Saenling ubi meae vadunt.”
Footnote 163:
Royal forests in which common of pasture, or timber is given by the
king. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 77, 107, 108, 201, 207, 234, 239, etc. Civic and
common forests in which the king makes similar grants. Cod. Dipl. Nos.
96, 160, 179, 190, 198, 216, 219, etc. Private forests, conveyed in
general terms of the grant. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 16, 17, 27, 32, 35, 36,
80, 83, 85, etc. Private forests particularly defined as appurtenant.
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 80, 89, 138, 152, 161, 165, 187, 214, etc.
Footnote 164:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 47, 86, 96, etc.
Footnote 165:
Cod. Dipl. No. 56. “Excepto eo, ut si quando in insula eidem ruri
pertinente proventus copiosior glandis acciderit, uni solummodo gregi
porcorum saginae pastus regi concederetur; et praeter hoc nulli, neque
principi, neque praefecto, neque tiranno alicui, pascua
constituantur.” This right of the king’s was called _Fearnleswe_: “Et
illam terram ... liberabo a pascua porcorum regis quod nominamus
Fearnleswe.” Cod. Dipl. No. 277.
Footnote 166:
Cod. Dipl. No. 236. “Silva quoque omnis quae illi aecclesiae et
suburbanis eius suppetit, in omnibus causis sit libera, et non secetur
ibi ad regis vel principis aedificia aliqua pars materiae grossi vel
gracilis, sed ab omnibus defensa et libera maneat.” Compare Böhm. Reg.
Karol. Nos. 387, 1157, 1598.
Footnote 167:
From a speech of Lord Bacon’s against the abuses of purveyors, it
appears that those who were to purvey timber for the king, even as
late as the reign of James the First, used to extort money by the
threat of felling ornamental trees in the avenues or grounds of
mansion-houses. Barrington, Anc. Stat. p. 7, note.
-----
STRANGER.—To the king belonged also the protection of all strangers
within his realm, and the consequent claim to a portion of their
wergyld, and their property in case of death, a _droit d’aubaine_. This
was a natural deduction from the principles of a period and a state of
society in which every man’s security was founded upon association
either with relatives or guildsmen: and as no one could have these in a
foreign mark,—the associations being themselves in intimate connection
with the territory,—it is obvious that the public authorities alone
could exercise any functions in behalf of the solitary chapman. As
general conservator of the peace, these necessarily fell to the king;
but the duties and advantages which he thus assumed became in turn
matter of grant, and were conferred by him upon other public persons or
corporations.
The laws declare the king, earl and bishop to be the relatives and
guardians of the stranger[168]; and the charters show that the
consequent gains were alienated by him at his pleasure. In 835, Ecgberht
gave the inheritance of Gauls and Britons, and half their wergyld, to
the monastery at Abingdon[169]. Among these strangers, the Jews were
especially mentioned. Anglosaxon history has not indeed recorded any of
those abominable outrages upon this long-suffering people which fill the
annals of our own and other countries during the middle ages; but there
can be no doubt that a false and fanatical view of religion, if not
their way of life and their accumulations, must have ever marked them
out for persecution. Eichhorn has justly characterized the feeling which
prevailed respecting them in all parts of Europe[170], and has remarked
to the honour of the Popes that they were the first to preach toleration
and command the attempt at conversion. But the utility of the Jewish
industry especially in thinly peopled countries, and their importance as
gatherers of capital, were ever engaged in a struggle against bigotry;
hence the Jews could generally obtain a qualified protection against all
but sudden outbreaks of popular fury. As these latter had mostly other
deep-seated causes, the ruling classes may sometimes have seen without
regret the popular indignation vent itself in a direction which did not
immediately endanger themselves: but as a general rule, the Jews enjoyed
protection, and were made to pay dearly for it. Both parties were
gainers by the arrangement. Among the Saxons this could not be
otherwise, for it was impossible for a Jew to be in a hundred or tithing
as a freeman; and he would probably have had but little security in the
household and following of an ordinary noble. The readiest and most
effective plan was to place him, wherever he might be, especially under
the king’s mundbyrd. Accordingly the law of Eádweard the Confessor
declares the king to be protector of all Jews[171], and this right
descended to his Norman successors. Similarly as the clergy relinquished
their mǽsceaft or bond of kin, on entering into orders, the king became
their natural mundbora[172].
-----
Footnote 168:
“If any one wrong an ecclesiastic or a foreigner, in anything touching
either his property or his life, then shall the king, or the earl
there in the land [_i. e._ among the Danes] or the bishop of the
people be unto him as a kinsman and protector: and let compensation be
strictly made, according to the deed, both to Christ and the king; or
let the king among the people severely avenge the deed.” Eádw. Guð. §
12. Thorpe, i. 174. See also Ranks. § 8. Æðelr. ix. § 33. Cnut, ii. §
40. Hen. I. x. § 3; lxxv. § 7.
Footnote 169:
Cod. Dipl. No. 236. “Similiter de haereditate peregrinorum, id est
Gallorum et Brittonum et horum similium, aecclesiae reddatur. Praetium
quoque sanguinis peregrinorum, id est _wergyld_, dimidiam partem rex
teneat, dimidiam aecclesiae antedictae reddant.”
Footnote 170:
Deut. Staatsr. i. 422, § 297. He cites an instruction of Margrave
Albrecht of Brandenburg an. 1462, which contains this Christian-like
provision:—“When a Roman emperor and king is crowned, he has a right
to take all they possess throughout his realm, yea and their lives
also, and to slay them, until only a little number of them be left, to
serve as a memorial.” Kings and populations, without being heads of
the holy Roman empire, assumed a similar right only too often.
Footnote 171:
Eádw. Conf. § 25. “Sciendum est quod omnes Judaei, ubicunque regno
sint, sub tutela et defensione regis ligie debent esse. Neque aliquis
eorum potest subdere se alicui diviti sine licentia regis; quia ipsi
Judaei et omnia sua regis sunt. Quod si aliquis detinuerit illos vel
pecuniam eorum, rex requirat tanquam suum proprium, si vult et
potest.”
Footnote 172:
Cnut, ii. § 40. Thorpe, i. 400.
-----
BRIDGE.—It is probable that no one could build a bridge without the
royal licence, though I am not aware of any instance in the Saxon times:
but I infer this from grants of the Frankish emperors and kings to that
effect[173]. It is possible that this may have depended upon the
circumstance that toll would be taken by the owner of such a bridge; but
we may believe that other reasons concurred with this, and that the
bridge originally had something of a holy character, and stood in near
relation to the priesthood[174].
-----
Footnote 173:
Böhm. Reg. Karol. Nos. 88, 680, 1931.
Footnote 174:
It has already been noticed as remarkable that Pontifex, the
bridge-builder, should be the name for the priestly class. There are
many superstitions connected with bridges, and the spirit of the
bridge even to this day, in Germany, demands his victims as inexorably
as the spirit of the river. Deut. Mythol. p. 563. The passage in
Schol. Ælii Aristid. which speaks, according to a modern emendation,
of Palladia in connection with bridges, is hopelessly corrupt. But
Servius, Æneid, ii. 661, says the Athenian Pallas was called γεφυρῖτις
(not γεφυρίστης as the copies have), and this is confirmed by the
Interp. Virgil, published by Mai, where from her position on a bridge
the goddess is called γεφυρῖτις Ἀθηνᾶ. Pherecydes (No. 101) and
Phylarchus (No. 79) both appear to refer to this, if indeed the
proposed readings can be admitted. See Fragm. Hist. Græc. pp. 95, 356.
There was in very early times a _gens_ of γεφυραῖοι at Athens, but I
do not know if they had any priestly functions. They had the worship
of Δημήτηρ Ἄχαια, and were Cadmæans who had immigrated into Attica;
from among them sprung Harmodius and Aristogeiton.
-----
CASTLE.—In like manner we may doubt whether the kings did not gradually
draw into their own hands the right to have fortified houses or castles,
which we find them possessing in the Norman times, and which they
extended to their adherents and favourites by special licence. In
mediæval history, the fortification of their houses by the inhabitants
of a city is the very first result of the establishment of a Communa,
commune or free municipality; and the destruction of such fortifications
the first care of the victorious count, bishop or king upon his triumph
over the _outrecuidance_ of the burghers[175]. The clearest instance of
the royal licence to a subject is a grant of Æðelræd and Æðelflæd to the
bishop of Worcester, about 880, which recites that they built a burh or
fortress for him, in his city, probably to defend his cathedral in those
stormy days of Danish ravage[176]. In very early times there may have
been fortresses belonging to private persons; this may be inferred from
names of places such as Sulmonnes burh, _Sulman’s castle_; and under the
later Anglosaxon kings, various great nobles may have obtained the
privilege of fortifying their own residences, as for example we read of
Pentecost’s castle and Rodberht’s castle under Eádweard the
Confessor[177], an example very likely to have been followed by the
powerful chieftains of Godwine’s, Sigeweard’s and Leófríc’s families;
but the cases were probably few. Of course fortresses built and
garrisoned by the king for the public defence are quite another matter:
these were imperial, and to their construction, maintenance and repair,
every estate throughout the land, whether of folcland or bócland, was
inevitably bound, not even excepting the demesne lands of the king
himself or of the ecclesiastical corporations.
Footnote 175:
Thierry, Lettres sur l’Hist. de France, p. 272. “Ainsi élevés de la
triste condition de sujets taillables d’une abbaye au rang d’alliés
politiques d’un des plus puissants seigneurs, les habitans de Vézelay
cherchèrent à s’entourer des signes extérieurs qui annonçaient ce
changement d’état. Ils élevèrent autour de leurs maisons, chacun selon
sa richesse, des murailles crénelées, ce qui était alors la marque de
la garantie du privilége de liberté. L’un des plus considérables parmi
eux, nommé Simon, jeta les fondements d’une grosse tour carrée, comme
celle dont les restes se voient à Toulouse, à Arles, et dans plusieurs
villes d’Italie. Ces tours, auxquelles la tradition joint encore le
nom de leur premier possesseur, donnent une grande idée de
l’importance individuelle des riches bourgeois du moyen âge,
importance bien autre que la petite considération dont ils jouirent
plus tard sous le régime monarchique. Cet appareil seigneurial n’était
pas, dans les grandes villes de commune, le privilége exclusif d’un
petit nombre d’hommes, seuls puissants au milieu d’une multitude
pauvre: Avignon, au commencement du treizième siècle, ne comptait pas
moins de trois cents maisons garnies de tours.”
This last fact rests upon the authority of Matthew Paris. On the
defeat of the Commune, the order was given to raze their
fortifications. The king himself, Louis le Jeune (A.D. 1155),
distinctly decreed in the sentence which he pronounced against them,
that within a given time the towers, walls and enclosures with which
they had fortified their houses should be demolished. But the burghers
had no such intention; “ces signes de liberté leur étaient plus chers
que leur argent;” and they continued to resist even after the Pope
himself had written to the king of France to demand the execution of
the decree. At length however the Abbot of Vézelay took the matter
into his own hands. “Il fit venir, des domaines de son église, une
troupe nombreuse de jeunes paysans serfs, qu’il arma aussi bien qu’il
put, et auxquels il donna pour commandants les plus déterminés de ses
moines. Cette troupe marcha droit à la maison de Simon, et ne trouvant
aucune résistance, se mit à démolir la tour et les murailles
crénelées, tandisque le maître de la maison, calme et fier comme un
Romain du temps de la république, était assis au coin du feu avec sa
femme et ses enfants. Ce succès, obtenu sans combat, décida la
victoire en faveur de la puissance seigneuriale, et ceux d’entre les
bourgeois qui avaient des maisons fortifiées donnèrent à l’abbé des
otages, pour garantie de la destruction de tous leur ouvrages de
défense. ‘Alors,’ dit le narrateur ecclésiastique, ‘toute querelle fut
terminée, et l’Abbaye de Vézelay recouvra le libre exercice de son
droit de juridiction sur ses vassaux rebelles.’” Ibid. pp. 291, 292.
Footnote 176:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1075.
Footnote 177:
Chron. Sax. 1052. “Ða geáxode Rotberd arcebisceop ⁊ ða Frencisce ðæt,
genamon heora hors ⁊ gewendon, sume west tó Pentecostes castele, sume
norð tó Rodberhtes castele.” However these were foreigners, a culpable
complaisance towards whom is a grievous stain upon Eádweard’s
otherwise amiable, though weak, character.
-----
ROADS and CANALS.—There is no very clear evidence respecting roads and
canals, licence to make which was a subject of grant by the Frankish
emperors[178]. But except as regarded the great roads which were
especially the king’s, and the cross roads, which were the county’s, it
is probable that there was no interference on the part of the state.
Every landowner must have had the privilege of making private paths,
large or small at his pleasure, by which access could be given to
different parts of his own property. We do occasionally find roads
mentioned by the name of the owners, and a common service of the
settlers on an estate was the liability to assist in making a new road
to the farm or mansion[179]. In an instance already cited we have seen
an abbot of St. Augustine’s digging a canal with the object of diverting
traffic from the haven of Sandwich. It may unhesitatingly be asserted
that he claimed this right under his general power as a landlord, and
not by any special grant for the purpose: this is evident from the whole
tenour of the narrative.
-----
Footnote 178:
Böhm. Deg. Karol. Nos. 248, 316.
Footnote 179:
Rect. Sing. Pers. Thorpe, i. 432.
-----
PORTS.—Ports and Havens were, however, essentially royalties, and, as we
have seen, could be granted to religious houses. They were naturally in
the king’s hand, for this reason: in the early times of which we treat,
the stranger is looked upon as an enemy, and every one who does not
belong to the association for the maintenance of peace, is _primâ facie_
out of the peace altogether. This applies to sailors, as well as
travelling chapmen who wander from mark to mark or county to county; and
it applied with peculiar force to England after her coasts became
exposed to repeated invasions from the North. Still as England could not
subsist without foreign commerce, and early became alive to that great
principle of her existence, a system of what we may call navigation laws
was established. The bottoms of friendly powers were of course received
upon terms of reciprocal favour, but even strange ships had the
privilege of safety if they made certain harbours, designated for that
purpose. At the treaty of Andover, in 994, Æðelræd and his witan agreed,
that every merchant-ship that voluntarily came into port should be in
the peace; and even if it were driven into port (whether by force or by
stress of weather is not specified), and there were a friðburh, asylum,
or building in the peace, in which the men took refuge, they and their
ship and cargo should enjoy the peace[180]. It is hardly to be doubted
that the king had the power of declaring what ports should be gefriðod
or in the peace; and as this privilege would necessarily draw many
advantages to any harbour that possessed it, we can reasonably conclude
that it was made a source of profit, both by the king and those to whom
he might think fit to grant it.
-----
Footnote 180:
Æðelr. ii. § 2. Thorpe, i. 284.
-----
WARDSHIP and MARRIAGE.—Wardship and Marriage appear to have been
royalties; we must however believe them to have been confined to the
children and widows of the thanes or comites, and to be a deduction from
the principles of the Comitatus itself.
In the secular law of Cnut there is a series of provisions, extending
from the 70th to the 75th clause, which can only be looked upon in the
light of alleviations, and which in the 70th clause the king himself
declares so to be. From the nature of the relief thus afforded, we may
infer that the royal officers had exercised their powers in a manner
oppressive to the subject. Accordingly the king and his witan proceed to
regulate the voluntary nature of the _feormfultum_, the legal amount of
heriot, the descent of property in the case of intestacy, and the
kings’s guardianship of the same; they protect the widow and heirs
against vexatious suits, by providing that they shall not be sued, if
the lord and father had remained undisturbed, and lastly they regulate
what appear to me to be the rights of wardship and marriage.
“And let every widow remain for a twelvemonth without a husband; then
let her do her pleasure. But if within the year she choose a husband,
let her forfeit the _morgengyfu_ and all the property she had through
her first husband, and let her nearest kin take the land and property
she had before. And let the husband be liable in his _wer_ to the king,
or to whomsoever he may have granted it. And even if she have been taken
by force, let her forfeit her possessions, unless she be willing to go
home again from the man, and never become his again.... And let no one
compel either woman or maiden to him whom she herself mislikes, nor for
money sell her, unless the suitor will give something of his own good
will[181].”
-----
Footnote 181:
Cnut, ii. § 74, 75.
-----
This of itself does not imply the royal right of marriage; but it
becomes much more significant, when we learn that estates had been given
to influential nobles, for their intercession with the king, on behalf
of profitable alliances: then, the circumstances, combined together,
seem to imply that Cnut desired to reform the miserable condition in
which he found England, in the hope, no doubt, by such reform to
consolidate his own power. The evidence of what may almost be called
purchasing a marriage—though not in the truly gross and vulgar sense of
such purchases among those whom writers of romances represent as the
_chivalrous_ Normans,—is supplied by the monk of Ramsey: the instance
dates from the middle of the tenth century. In mentioning an estate of
five hides at Burwell, the chronicler adds: “This is the estate which—as
we find in the very ancient English charters referring to it—a certain
man named Eádwine, the son of Othulf, had in old times granted to
archbishop Oda, as a reward for his pains and trouble in bringing king
Eádred to consent, that Eádwine might have leave to marry the daughter
of a certain Ulf, whom he desired[182].” This Ulf does not, I believe,
occur among the signitaries to any of the charters, unless the name
represent some one of the many Wulfgárs or Wulfláf’s of the time: but
still we must suppose him to have been a person of consideration, since
a large estate was given for his daughter’s marriage. In the absence of
all details we cannot form any clear decision as to the royal right in
this respect, though the balance of probability seems to me to incline
to the view that the king had some right of wardship and marriage over
the children and widows of his own thanes or sócmen. This seems to lie
in the very nature of their relative position. With the widow or child
of a free man, it is of course not to be imagined that the king could
interfere; but in the time of Eádred there were probably not many free
men whose wealth rendered interference worth the trouble.
-----
Footnote 182:
“Pro mercede solicitudinis et laboris, quo regem Ædredum ad consensum
inflexerat, ut ei liceret filiam cuiusdam viri Ulfi; quam
concupiverat, maritali sibi foedere copulare.” Hist. Rames. cap. 23.
-----
HEREGEATWE. HERIOT.—The general nature of Heriot has been explained in
the First Book: it was there shown that it arose from the theory of the
_comes_ having been originally armed by the king, to whom upon his death
the arms reverted: and in imitation of this, Best-head or Melius
catallum, distinguished in our law as Heriot-custom, was shown to have
arisen. But whatever may have been its origin or early amount,—and its
earliest amount was no doubt unsettled, depending upon the will of the
chief who might take all or some of his thanes’ chattels at his
pleasure,—in process of time it became assessed at a fixed amount,
according to the rank of the person from whose estate it was paid. The
law of Cnut[183] which determined this amount was probably only a
re-enactment, or confirmation of an older custom, and appears to have
been introduced to put an end to disputes upon the subject; it declares
as follows:—
“Let the heriots be as fits the degree. An earl’s as belongs to an
earl’s rank, viz. eight horses, four saddled, four unsaddled, four
helmets, four coats-of-mail, eight spears, eight shields, four swords
and two hundred mancuses of gold. From a king’s thane, of those who are
nearest to him, four horses, two saddled, two unsaddled; two swords,
four spears, four shields, a helmet, a coat-of-mail and fifty mancuses
of gold. From a medial thane, a horse equipped, and his arms; or his
healsfang in Wessex, and in Mercia and Eastanglia two pounds. Among the
Danes, the heriot of a king’s thane who has his sócn[184] is four
pounds: if he stand in nearer relation to the king, two horses, one
equipped, a sword, two spears, two shields and fifty mancuses of gold.
And from a thane of the lower order, two pounds.”
-----
Footnote 183:
Cnut, ii. § 72. Thorpe, i. 414.
Footnote 184:
A baronial court.
-----
The following are examples of heriots paid both before and after the
time of Cnut.
The estate of Ðeódrǽd bishop of London and Elmham, about 940, paid, four
horses the best he had, two swords the best he had, four shields, four
spears, two hundred marks of red gold, two silver cups, and his lands at
Anceswyrð, Illingtún and Earmingtún[185].
-----
Footnote 185:
Cod. Dipl. No. 957.
-----
In 946-956, the estate of Æðelwald the ealdorman paid four horses, four
spears, four swords, four shields, two rings each worth one hundred and
twenty mancuses, two rings each worth eighty mancuses (in all four
hundred mancuses) and two silver vessels[186].
-----
Footnote 186:
Ibid. No. 1173.
-----
About 958, Ælfgár gave the king two swords with belts, three steeds,
three shields, three spears, and two rings each worth fifty mancuses of
gold[187].
-----
Footnote 187:
Ibid. No. 1223.
-----
The heriot of Beorhtríc, about 962, was, four horses, two equipped, two
swords and belts, a ring worth eighty mancuses of gold, a sword of the
same value, two falcons, and all his stag-hounds[188].
-----
Footnote 188:
Ibid. No. 492.
-----
The great duke Ælfheáh of Hampshire, 965-971, gave to Eádgár, who had
married his cousin Ælfðrýð, duke Ordgár’s daughter, the following
property: it is hard to say how much of it was heriot: six horses with
their trappings, six swords, six spears, six shields, one sword worth
eighty mancuses of gold, one dish of three pounds, one cup of three
pounds, three hundred mancuses of gold, one hundred and twenty hides of
land at Wyrð, and his estates at Cóchám, Dæchám, Ceóleswyrð,
Incgeneshám, Æglesbyrig and Wendofra[189].
-----
Footnote 189:
Ibid. No. 593.
-----
Æðelríc, in 997, paid two horses, one sword and belt, two shields, two
spears, and sixty marks of gold[190].
-----
Footnote 190:
Cod. Dipl. No. 699. This is very nearly the exact heriot. Æðelríc, who
was no friend to the king, probably meant to give him no doit more
than he could legally claim.
-----
Archbishop Ælfríc, 996-1006, devised to the king, as his heriot, sixty
helmets, sixty coats-of-mail, and his best ship with all her tackle and
stores[191].
-----
Footnote 191:
Cod. Dipl. No. 716.
-----
Ælfhelm paid four horses, two equipped, four shields, four spears, two
swords, and one hundred mancuses of gold[192].
-----
Footnote 192:
Ibid. No. 967.
-----
Wulfsige paid two horses, one helmet, one coat-of-mail, one sword, one
spear twined with gold[193].
-----
Footnote 193:
Ibid. No. 979.
-----
The majority of these cases belong to periods previous to Cnut’s
accession, but they seem to imply an assessment very similar to his own.
And in this view of the case, where the payment had become a settled
amount due from persons of a particular rank, it became possible for
women to be charged with it, which we accordingly find. In 1046 Wulfgýð
commences her will by desiring that her right heriot may be paid to the
king[194]: Æðelgyfu in 945 gave the king thirty mancuses of gold, two
horses and all her dogs[195]: Ælflǽd left him by will her lands at
Lamburnan, Ceólsige and Readingan, four rings worth two hundred mancuses
of gold, four palls, four cups, four drinking-horns and four
horses[196]: and lastly queen Ælfgyfu in 1012 left the king, six horses,
six shields, six spears, one cup, two rings worth one hundred and twenty
mancuses each, and various lands[197]. Taken in connection with the case
of Wulfgýð, these bequests appear very like heriots. The heriots
mentioned in Domesday agree with the details given above, and serve to
show that the right had undergone no material alteration till the time
of the Confessor[198]. That the Best-head or Melius catallum was paid to
the king by his unfree tenants, as well as to other lords, is probable,
but we have no instance of it[199]. By the law of Cnut, the widow was to
have a reasonable time for payment of the heriot, and it was altogether
remitted to the family of him who fell bravely fighting in the field
before the presence of his lord.
-----
Footnote 194:
Ibid. No. 782.
Footnote 195:
Ibid. No. 410.
Footnote 196:
Ibid. No. 685.
Footnote 197:
Cod. Dipl. No. 721.
Footnote 198:
Domesd. Berks. “Tanias vel miles regis dominicus moriens pro
relevamento dimittebat regi omnia arma sua, et equum unum cum sella,
unum sine sella. Quod si essent ei canes vel accipitres,
praesentabantur regi, ut si vellet, acciperet.”
Footnote 199:
Fleta, ii. cap. 57, § 1, 2. “Imprimis autem debet quilibet qui
testaverit dominum suum de meliori re quam habuerit recognoscere, et
postea aecclesiam de alia meliori, et in quibusdam locis habet
aecclesia melius animal de consuetudine, in quibusdam secundum vel
tertium melius, et in quibusdam nihil: et ideo observanda est
consuetudo loci.” § 2. “Item de morte uxoris alicuius viri, dum vir
superstes fuerit, de toto grege communi secundum melius averium, quasi
de parte sua: sed hoc non nisi de permissione et gratia viri.” This
Melius catallum, Bestehaupt or Best-head was in fact a servile due:
but in this sense it was an alleviation; for strictly speaking the
lord could take the whole inheritance of his unfree tenant. In 1252
Margaret Countess of Flanders gave this alleviation to the serfs of
the crown: “Tous les serfs demeurant en Flandre, sous la justice
propre de la comtesse, furent affranchis de servitude en 1252, à
charge de payer par homme trois deniers, et par femme un denier
annuellement; et le droit qu’elle avait à la moitié des meubles en
catteux des serfs morts, fut reduit au meilleur cattel, [melius
catallum] autre que maison ou bête de somme.” Warnkönig. Hist. Fland.
i. 259. On this subject generally see Nelson, Lex Maneriorum, p. 154.
-----
It appears from what has been said in this chapter that the kings were
provided very sufficiently with the means of maintaining their dignity:
the benefactions which they were enabled to make out of the folcland
relieved their private estates from the burthen of supporting the
thanes, clerical and lay, who flocked to their service. Still there must
have been a constant drain upon their possessions; and many of the
regalia became lost to the crown by successive alienations. It is true
that they were generally purchased at a high price, but in this case the
king who sold them was the only gainer: he secured considerable sums for
himself, but he impoverished all his successors to a much greater
amount. The loans for which we occasionally find him indebted to his
prelates, show how completely at times the crown had been pillaged, as
well as who were the principal sharers in the plunder. The attempt to
draw in lands and privileges which had once been alienated, was
questionable in policy and harsh to the innocent holders; but it does
not always seem to have been viewed impartially even by those least
concerned; we may however now express our conviction that in many cases
the alienations themselves had been made improperly and without
sufficient authority; and, that if it was hard upon an abbot or bishop
to lose what his predecessor had gained, it was very hard upon a king to
be without what _his_ predecessor had unjustly and often illegally
squandered.
CHAPTER III.
THE KING’S COURT AND HOUSEHOLD.
The Anglosaxon Court appears to have been modelled upon the same plan as
that of the Frankish Emperors: our documents do not however permit us to
judge whether this was the case before a sufficient intercourse had
taken place to render a positive imitation probable.
It is not at all unlikely that, from the very first establishment of the
Comitatus, the possession of those household offices was coveted, which
brought the holder into closer personal connection with the prince: and
more or less of dependence could be of little moment with those who had
erected into a system the voluntary sacrifice of the holiest of all
possessions, their freedom of action. Hence we can readily account for
the assumption by men nobly born of offices about the royal person,
which were at first directly and immediately menial[200]. Nor, as the
opportunities of personal aggrandisement through favouritism or
affection were multiplied, does it seem strange to us that these offices
should assume a character of dignity and real power, which, however
little in consonance with their original intention, yet made them
objects of ambition with the wealthy and the noble. We do not any longer
wonder at the struggles of dukes and barons for the offices of royal
cupbearer at a coronation, or Steward or Chamberlain of the Household,
because time and the attribution of judicial or administrative functions
have given those offices a distinction which at the outset they did not
possess: and we see without surprise the electors of Germany personally
serving at his table the member of their body whom they had invested
with imperial rank; and, when they fixed the throne hereditarily in him,
providing for the succession in their own families of Butlers, Stewards,
Marshals or Chancellors of the empire.
-----
Footnote 200:
Speaking of the Pincerna regis Æðelstani, one of the great officers of
the Household, in the early part of the tenth century, William of
Malmesbury says, “Itaque cum forte die solenni vinum propinaret,” etc.
Gest. Reg. § ii. 139.
-----
As the progress of society drew larger and larger numbers of men into
the circle of princely influence, and, by withdrawing them from the
jurisdiction of the free courts, rendered a systematic establishment of
the Lord’s court more necessary, the officers who were charged with the
superintendence of the various royal vassals, rose immeasurably in the
social scale. Thus the Major Domus or Mayor of the palace, at first only
a steward, who had to regulate the affairs of the Household, gradually
assumed the management of those of the kingdom, and ended by placing on
his own head the crown which he had filched from his master’s. So was it
with the rest.
The four great officers of the Court and Household in the oldest German
kingdoms are the Chamberlain, the Marshal, the Steward and the Butler.
The names by which the Chamberlain was designated are Hrægel þegn,
literally thane or servant of the wardrobe, Cubicularius, Camerarius,
Búrþegn, perhaps sometimes Dispensator, and Thesaurarius or Hordere. It
is difficult to ascertain his exact duties in the Anglosaxon Court, but
they probably differed little from those of the corresponding officer
among other German populations, and there is reason to compare those of
the Frankish Cubicularius with the functions of the Comites sacrarum
largitionum and rerum privatarum of the Roman emperors. Hence we may
presume that he had the general management of the royal property, as
well as the immediate regulation of the household[201]. In this capacity
he may have been the recognized chief of the cyninges túngeréfan or
king’s bailiffs, on the several estates; for we find no traces of any
districtual or missatic authority to whom these officers could account.
At the same time it appears that this officer was not what we now call
the Lord Great Chamberlain, but rather the Lord Chamberlain of the
Household, and that more than one officer of the same rank existed at
the same time[202]. Hence we can hardly suppose that the dignity of the
office was comparable to that of the Lord Chamberlain at present, with
the great and various powers and duties which are now committed to that
distinguished member of the Court. Among the nobles who held this office
I find the following named:—
Ælfríc thesaurarius, under Ælfred, 892[203].
Æðelsige camerarius, ... Eádgár, 963[204].
Leófríc hræglþegn, ... Æðelred, 1006[205].
Eádríc dispensator regis, ... Hardacnut,
1040[206].
Hugelinus camerarius, ... Eádweard, 1044[207].
cubicularius ... Eádweard, 1060[208].
stiweard, ... Eádweard[209].
búrþegn ... Eádweard[210].
The Marshal (among the Franks Marescalcus, and Comes stabuli) was
properly speaking the Master of the Horse, and had charge of everything
connected with the royal equipments, in that department. But as he
gradually became the head of the active and disposable military force of
the palace, he must be looked upon rather as the general of the
Household troops. It was thus that the high military dignity of
Constable, or Grand Marshal, by degrees developed itself. This office
was held by nobles of the highest rank, and frequently by several at
once,—a sufficient explanation of a fact which otherwise would appear
strange, viz. that we never find the royal power endangered by that of
this influential minister. The Anglosaxon titles are Steallere and
Horsþegn, Stabulator and Strator régis. We have no evidence of the
existence of the office before the close of the ninth century, and it
might therefore be imagined that it was introduced into England after
the establishment of the family of Ecgberht had familiarized our
countrymen with the Frankish court and its customs, did we not find it
as an essential institution in all German courts, of all periods. Among
the Anglo-Saxon Marshals the following names occur:—
Ecgwulf strator regis: cyninges horsþegn, an. 897[211].
Ðored steallere, about 1020[212].
Ésgár steallere, 1044-1066[213].
Robert filius Wimarc steallere[214].
Ælfstán steallere[215].
Eádgár steallere, 1060-1066[216].
Raulf steallere, 1053-1066[217].
Bondig steallere, 1060-1066[218].
stabulator[219].
Eádnóð steallere[220].
Lýfing steallere[221].
Ælfred regis strator, 1052[222].
Osgod Clapa steallere, 1047[223].
The Steward, usually called Dapifer or Discifer regis, answered to the
Seneschal of the Franks (the Truchsess of the German empire); his
especial business was to superintend all that appertained to the service
of the royal table, under which we must probably include the
arrangements for the general support of the household, both at the
ordinary and temporary residences of the king. His Anglosaxon name was
Discþegn, or thane of the table; and I find the following nobles
recorded as holding this office:—
Eata dux et regis discifer, under Offa, 785[224].
Wulfgár discifer, ... Eádwig, 959[225].
Æðelmǽr discþegn, ... Æðelred, 1006[226].
Raulf dapifer, } ... Eádweard, 1060[227].
Ésgar dapifer, }
Atsur regis dapifer, } ... Eádweard, 1062[228].
Yfing regis dapifer, } ...
-----
Footnote 201:
Eichhorn, i. 197. § 25, b. Eichhorn argues the first from a passage in
Greg. Turon. vii. 24. The latter portion of the Chamberlain’s duties
is defined by Hincmar of Rheims, § 22. “De honestate vero palatii, seu
specialiter ornamento reguli, necnon et de donis annuis militum,
absque cibo et potu, vel equis, ad Reginam praecipue, et sub ipsa ad
Camerarium pertinebat: et sollicitudo erat, ut tempore congruo semper
futura prospicerent, ne quid, dum opus esset, defuisset. De donis vero
diversarum legationum ad Camerarium aspiciebat.”
Footnote 202:
“Cubicularios regis duos.” Will. Malm., ii. § 180.
Footnote 203:
Cod. Dipl. No. 320.
Footnote 204:
Ibid. No. 1246.
Footnote 205:
Ibid. No. 715.
Footnote 206:
Flor. Wig. an. 1040.
Footnote 207:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 771, 810.
Footnote 208:
Ibid. No. 809.
Footnote 209:
Ibid. No. 899, very doubtful.
Footnote 210:
Ibid. No. 904.
Footnote 211:
Flor. Wig. an. 897. Chron. Saxon, _cod. an._
Footnote 212:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1328.
Footnote 213:
Ibid. Nos. 771, 828, 855, 864.
Footnote 214:
Ibid. Nos. 771, 822, 828, 859, 871, 904, 956, 1338.
Footnote 215:
Ibid. No. 773.
Footnote 216:
Ibid. No. 809.
Footnote 217:
Ibid. Nos. 822, 956, 1338.
Footnote 218:
Ibid. No. 822.
Footnote 219:
Ibid. No. 945.
Footnote 220:
Ibid. No. 845.
Footnote 221:
Ibid. Nos. 956, 1338.
Footnote 222:
Flor. Wig. an. 1052.
Footnote 223:
Chron. Sax. an. 1047.
Footnote 224:
Cod. Dipl. No. 149.
Footnote 225:
Ibid. No. 1224.
Footnote 226:
Ibid. No. 715.
Footnote 227:
Ibid. No. 808.
Footnote 228:
Ibid. No. 813.
-----
In the year 946 Florence tells us of a dapifer regis, whom he does not
name. The queen and princes of the blood had also a similar officer for
the management of their households. In 1060 we read of Godwine, reginae
dapifer[229], and Æðelred’s son Æðelstán had a Discþegn named
Ælfmǽr[230]. High as this office was, we yet cannot expect to find in it
that overwhelming power wielded in later times by the Seneschal or
Dapifer Angliae,—a power which might easily have converted the
Grandmesnils and De Montforts into the Ebroins or Pepins of a newly
established dynasty, and after their fall was wisely retained in the
royal family by our kings. We have now, as is well known, only a Lord
High Steward, or Major domus, on particular occasions, for which he is
especially created: but the Lord Steward of the Household is an officer
of great power and high dignity in the Court of our kings. A Major domus
regiae occurs, as far as I know, but once in our Ante-Norman history,
and may there probably denote only the dapifer or seneschal: he is
mentioned by Florence, an. 1040, as “Stir, major domus ... magnae
dignitatis vir”; but we hear nothing more of him, or of any such
influence as the corresponding high officer exercised in the Frankish
court. The title Regiae procurator aulae, borne by the great Esgár, whom
we have also seen among the Marshals, may very likely only refer to his
office of dapifer[231], which, from the list given above, it will be
evident that he held.
-----
Footnote 229:
Ibid. No. 813.
Footnote 230:
Ibid. No. 722.
Footnote 231:
Cod. Dipl. No. 813.
-----
The last great officer is the Pincerna, in Germany the Schenk or
Buticularius,—the Butler. What his particular duties were, beyond his
personal service at the royal board, and no doubt his general
superintendence of the royal cellars, we cannot now discover; but the
office was one of the highest dignity, and was held by nobles of the
loftiest birth and greatest consideration. Óslác, a direct descendant
from the royal Jutish blood of Stuff and Wihtgár, was the pincerna of
king Æðelwulf; and by this prince’s daughter, “femina nobilis ingenio,
nobilis et genere,”—his first wife Ósburh,—Æðelwulf became the father of
Ælfred[232]. The Anglosaxon name of this officer may have been Byrele,
or Scenca, but I am not aware of its occurrence. The following are among
the Pincernae mentioned.
Dudda pincernus, about 780[233].
Sigewulf pincerna, 892[234].
Æðelsige pincerna, 959[235].
Wulfgár pincerna, 1000[236].
Wigod regis pincerna, 1062[237].
The queen, as she had a dapifer, had also a pincerna: in 1062, Herdingus
is reported to have held that office[238].
There can be no doubt that these offices were entirely Palatine or
domestic, that is that they were household dignities, and did not
appertain to the general administration. Only when the spirit and
feeling of the comitatus had completely prevailed over the older free
organization, did they rise into an importance which, throughout the
course of mediæval history, we find continually on the increase. They
were the grades in the comitatus of which Tacitus himself speaks, which
depended upon the good pleasure of the prince: and with the power of the
prince their power and dignity varied. The functionaries who held them
were the heads of different departments to which belonged all the
vassals, _leudes_ or _fideles_ of the king: and as by degrees the
freemen perished away, and every one gladly rushed to throw himself into
a state of thaneship, the trusted and familiar friends of the prince
became the most powerful agents of his administration: till the feudal
system having seized on everything, converted these court-functions also
into hereditary fiefs, and rendered their holders often powerful enough
to make head against the authority of the crown itself. As long as a
vestige of the free constitution remained, we hear but little of the
court offices: what they became upon its downfall is known to every
reader of history. It seems to me improbable that Godwine, or Harald, or
Leófríc or Sigeward should ever have filled them: these men were
ealdormen or dukes, geréfan, civil and military administrators; but not
officers of the royal household, powerful and dignified as these might
be. It is probable that the first and most important of their duties was
the administration of justice to the king’s sócmen in their various
departments; from which in later times were clearly derived the
extensive powers and attributions of the several royal courts: but as
the intimate friends and cherished counsellors of the king, they must
have possessed an influence whose natural tendency was to complete that
great change in the social state, which causes of a more general
nature,—increasing population, commerce and the disturbance of foreign
and civil discord,—were hurrying relentlessly onward.
-----
Footnote 232:
Asser, an. 849.
Footnote 233:
Cod. Dipl. No. 148.
Footnote 234:
Ibid. No. 320.
Footnote 235:
Ibid. No. 1224.
Footnote 236:
Ibid. No. 1294.
Footnote 237:
Ibid. No. 813.
Footnote 238:
Ibid. No. 813.
-----
In various situations of trust and authority, either by the side of
these officers, or subordinated to them, we find a number of other
persons under different titles. Among these are the clergymen who acted
as clerks or notaries in the imperial chancery. The Frankish court
numbered among its members a functionary of the highest rank, and always
a clergyman, from the very necessity of the case, who went by the name
of Apocrisiarius, Archicapellanus, Capellanus[239], or at an earlier
period, of Referendarius[240]; at a later again, of Archicancellarius,
because he had a subordinate officer or deputy commonly called the
Cancellarius. He was the head of those whose business it was to prepare
writs and other legal instruments, and who went by the general names of
Notarii or Tabelliones[241]. In a state which admitted of what are now
called Personal laws, that is, where each man might be judged, not
according to the law of the place in which he was settled, but that of
his parents, that under which he was born,—where Frank, Burgundian,
Alaman and Roman might claim each to be tried and judged by Frankish,
Burgundian, Alamanic or Roman law respectively, whatever might be the
prevalent character of the territory in which he was domiciled,—such an
officer was indispensable. The administration of the customary,
unwritten law of the Teutonic tribes might have been left to Teutonic
officers; but what was to be done when a Provincial claimed the
application to his case of the maxims and provisions of Roman
jurisprudence? What was to be done when a collision of principles and a
conflict of laws took place, and must be provided for? A clergyman,
whose own nation, whatever it might be, merged in the Roman _per
clericalem honorem_[242], must necessarily become a principal officer of
a state which numbered both Romans and clergymen among its subjects; and
hence the Apocrisiarius had a seat in the Carolingian parliament[243],
as well as in the Council of the Household, and ultimately became the
principal minister for the affairs of the clergy[244]. But no such
necessity existed in England, where there was no system of conflicting
laws, and where the use of professional notaries was unknown[245], and I
therefore see no _à priori_ probability of there having been any such
officer as the Referendarius or Apocrisiarius in our courts. Nor till
the reign of Eádweard the Confessor is there the slightest historical
evidence in favour of such an office[246]: under this prince however,
whose predilection for Norman customs is notorious, it is not improbable
that some change may have taken place in this respect, and that a
gradual approximation to the continental usage may have been found. The
occurrence therefore of a Cancellarius, Sigillarius and Notarius among
his household does not appear matter of great surprise, and may be
admitted as genuine, if we are only careful not to confound the first
officer with that great functionary whom we now call the Lord High
Chancellor of the realm. We are told that, among his innovations,
Eádweard attempted to introduce the use of seals; the uniform tenor of
his writs certainly renders it not improbable that he had also notaries
or professional clerks, and I can therefore admit the probability of his
having appointed some faithful chaplain to act as his chancellor, that
is, to keep his seal,—though not yet used for public instruments,—and to
manage the royal notarial establishment. There are many persons named as
royal chaplains; some, whose successive appointments to bishoprics
appeared to our simple forefathers to encroach too much upon the proper
and canonical mode of election. Among them are the following:—
Eádsige capellanus, 1038[247]
Stigandus capellanus, 1044[248].
Heremannus capellanus, 1045[249].
Wulfwig cancellarius, Eádweard, 1045[250].
Reginboldus sigillarius, ... ... [251].
Reginboldus cancellarius, Eádweard, 1045[252].
Ælfgeat notarius, ... ... [253].
Petrus capellanus, ... ... [254].
Baldwinus capellanus, ... ... [255].
Osbernus capellanus, ... ... [256].
Rodbertus capellanus, ... ... [257].
Heca capellanus, 1047[258].
Ulf capellanus, 1049[259].
Cynesige capellanus, 1051[260].
Wilhelmus capellanus, 1051[261].
Godmannus capellanus, 1053[262].
Gisa capellanus, 1060[263].
Footnote 239:
Hincmar. § 32.
Footnote 240:
“Qui referendarius ideo est dictus, quod ad eum universae publicae
deferentur conscriptiones, ipseque eas annulo regis, sive sigillo ab
eo sibi commisso muniret seu primaret.” Aimo. Gest. Franc. iv. 41.
Eichhorn, i. 194, note f. § 25, b.
Footnote 241:
“Apocrisiario sociebatur summus cancellarius, qui a secretis olim
appellabatur, erantque illi subiecti prudentes et intelligentes ac
fideles viri, qui praecepta regia absque immoderata cupiditatis
venalitate scriberent, et secreta illius fideliter custodirent.”
Hincmar. § 16. Eichhorn, _loc. cit._
Footnote 242:
“Landulfus et Petrus clericus germani, ... qui professi sumus ex
natione nostra legem vivere Langobardorum, sed ego Petrus clericus per
clericalem honorem lege videor vivere Romana.” Lupi. p. 223, cited by
Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 120.
Footnote 243:
Hincmar. § 16, 19, 21. Döninges, Deut. Staatsr. p. 24 _seq._
Footnote 244:
Eichhorn, § 25, b. i. 195.
Footnote 245:
“Quoniam tabellionum usus in regno Angliae non habetur.” Mat. Paris,
Hen. III.
Footnote 246:
In Cod. Dipl. Nos. 3, 4, an Angemundus referendarius is mentioned, but
these two charters are glaring forgeries.
Footnote 247:
Flor. Wig. an. 1038, Abp. Canterbury.
Footnote 248:
Ibid. an. 1044, Abp. Canterbury.
Footnote 249:
Ibid. an. 1045, Bp. Ramsbury.
Footnote 250:
Cod. Dipl. No. 779.
Footnote 251:
Cod. Dipl. No. 810.
Footnote 252:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 813, 824, 825, 891.
Footnote 253:
Ibid. No. 825.
Footnote 254:
Ibid. Nos. 813, 825.
Footnote 255:
Ibid. No. 813.
Footnote 256:
Ibid. No. 825.
Footnote 257:
Ibid. No. 825, Abp. Canterbury.
Footnote 258:
Flor. Wig. an. 1047, Bp. Selsey.
Footnote 259:
Ibid. an. 1049, Bp. Leicester.
Footnote 260:
Ibid. an. 1051, Abp. York.
Footnote 261:
Ibid. an. 1051, Bp. London.
Footnote 262:
Ibid. an. 1053.
Footnote 263:
Ibid. an. 1060, Bp. Wells.
-----
Eádweard’s queen Eádgyfu and her brother Harald had also their
chaplains; Walther, afterwards bishop of Hereford[264], and Leófgár who
preceded him in the same see[265], and who, being probably of the same
mind as his noble and warlike lord, was no sooner a bishop than “he
forsook his chrism and rood, his spiritual weapons, and took to his
spear and sword,” and so going to the field against Griffin the Welsh
king, was slain, and many of his priests with him. The establishment of
chaplains in the royal household is, of course, of the highest
antiquity; it is probable that they were preceded there by Pagan
priests, and formed a necessary part of the royal comitatus in all
ages[266].
-----
Footnote 264:
Ibid. an. 1060.
Footnote 265:
Ibid. an. 1050, Chron. 1056.
Footnote 266:
“Desiderante rege [Alchfrið] ut vir tantae eruditionis ac religionis
sibi specialiter individuo comitatu sacerdos esset et doctor.” Beda,
H. E. ii. 19.
-----
Among the royal officers was also the Pedissequus or as he is sometimes
called Pedessessor, whose functions I cannot nearer define, unless he
were a king’s messenger. The following instances occur:—Æðelheáh
pedessessor, who appears to have been a duke[267]: Bola pedisecus[268]:
Ælfred pedisecus[269]. Eástmund pedisecus[270]. In Beówulf, Hunferð the
orator is said to _sit_ at the king’s _feet_, “ðe æt fótum sæt freán
scyldinga.” (l. 994.)
-----
Footnote 267:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 196, 199, 207.
Footnote 268:
Ibid. No. 220.
Footnote 269:
Ibid. No. 227.
Footnote 270:
Ibid. No. 281.
-----
In the year 1040, Hardacnut’s _carnifex_ or executioner is described as
a person of great dignity[271]. Other titles are also enumerated, some
of which appear to denote offices in the royal household: thus we find
Radulfus aulicus[272], Bundinus palatinus[273], Deórmód
cellerarius[274], Wiferð claviger[275], Leófsige signifer[276], Ælfwine
sticcere[277], Æðelríc bigenga[278]. It is uncertain whether the
following are to be considered as regular members of the court, or
whether their presence was merely accidental, on a particular occasion:
Brihtríc and Ælfgár, consiliarii[279], Ælfwig[280] and Cyneweard[281]
praepositi, Godricus tribunus[282], Aldred theloniarius[283]. Nor is it
absolutely demonstrable that those who claimed consanguinity with the
king formed part of his household, although they probably made their
connexion valid as a recommendation to royal favour. “The king’s poor
cousin[284]” seems at all events to have taken care that his light
should shine before men, as we learn from the signatures, Ælfhere ex
parentela regis[285], Leófwine propinquus regis[286], Hesburnus regis
consanguineus[287], Rodbertus regis consanguineus[288], and similar
entries.
-----
Footnote 271:
“Ælfricum Eboracensem archiepiscopum, Godwinum comitem, Stir majorem
domus, Thrond suum carnificem, et alios magnae dignitatis viros,
Lundoniam misit.” Flor. Wig. an. 1040.
Footnote 272:
Cod. Dipl. No. 813.
Footnote 273:
Ibid. No. 813.
Footnote 274:
Ibid. No. 320.
Footnote 275:
Ibid. No. 346.
Footnote 276:
Ibid. No. 346.
Footnote 277:
Ibid. No. 799.
Footnote 278:
Ibid. No. 745.
Footnote 279:
Ibid. No. 811.
Footnote 280:
Ibid. Nos. 792, 793, 800.
Footnote 281:
Ibid. Nos. 792, 800.
Footnote 282:
Cod. Dipl. No. 945.
Footnote 283:
Ibid. No. 218.
Footnote 284:
Shaksp. Hen. IV. Pt. ii. sc. 2.
Footnote 285:
Cod. Dipl. No. 436.
Footnote 286:
Ibid. No. 436.
Footnote 287:
Ibid. No. 813.
Footnote 288:
Ibid. No. 813.
But no such doubt applies to the household troops, or immediate
body-guard of the king. These are commonly called Húscarlas, by the
Anglosaxon writers, and continued to exist under that name after the
Norman conquest. Lappenberg has very justly looked upon them as a kind
of military gild, or association, of which the king was the master[289].
I doubt whether they were organized as a separate force before the time
of Cnut; but it is certain that under that prince and his Danish
successors they attained a definite and settled position. It is probable
that this resulted from the circumstances under which he obtained the
crown of England, and that the institution was not known to his Saxon
predecessors: as an invader, not at all secure of his tenure, and
surrounded by nobles whose previous conduct offered but slight guarantee
of their fidelity, it became absolutely necessary to his safety to
organize his own peculiar force in such a way as to secure the readiest
service if occasion demanded it. This was the object of the Witherlags
Ret, by which the privileges and duties of the Húscarlas were settled.
Of this law Lappenberg observes:—“With greater probability may be
reckoned among the earlier labours of Cnut, the composition of the
Witherlags Ret, a court- or gild-law, framed for his standing army, as
well as for the body-guards of his jarls. As the greater part of his
army remained in England, the Witherlags Ret was there first
established, and as the introduction of strict discipline among such a
military community must precede all other ameliorations in the condition
of the country, the mention of this law in its history ought not to be
omitted[290]. The immediate military attendants of a conqueror always
exercise vast influence, and these originally Danish soldiers
(thingamenn, thingamanna lith, by the English called Húscarlas) have at
a later period, both as bodyguards of the king and of the great vassals,
acted no unimportant part in the country. They were armed with axes,
halberds and swords inlaid with gold, and in purpose, descent and
equipment corresponded to the Warangian guard (Wæringer), in which the
throne of the Byzantine emperors found its best security. In Cnut’s time
the number of these mercenaries was not very great,—being by some
reckoned at three thousand, by others at six thousand[291]—but they were
gathered under his banner from various nations, and consequently
required the stricter discipline. Even a valiant Wendish prince,
Gottschalk, the son of Udo, stayed long with Cnut in England, and gained
the hand of a daughter of the royal house[292]. Cnut himself appears
rather as a sort of grand-master of this military gild, than as its
commander, and it is said that, having in his anger slain one of the
brotherhood in England, he submitted himself to its judgment in their
assembly (stefn) and paid a ninefold compensation[293]. The degrading
epithet of ‘nithing’ applied to an expelled member of the gild, is an
Anglosaxon word, which at a later period occurs in a way to render it
extremely probable that the gild-law of the royal house-carls was in
existence after the Norman conquest[294].”
-----
Footnote 289:
Thorpe’s Lappenberg, ii. 202, and his references to Suen Aggonis,
Hist. Legum Castrens. Regis Canuti Magni, c. iv. ap. Langebek, iii.
146; ii. 454, note _d._ Palgrave, ii. p. ccclxxxi. Ellis, Introd.
Domesd. i. 91; ii. 151 _seq._
Footnote 290:
This observation requires to be taken with some caution. The
Witherlags Ret was a private and bye-law, not a public law, and had
little to do with the public law, except in as far as it connected the
conquering force by closer bonds, and secured their energetic action
as a body, upon emergency. It was devised to keep the household troops
together, not to apply in any way to their public relation towards the
Saxons. Its influence was therefore only such as derived mediately
from the fact of its maintaining the king at the head of a select
_prætorian_ cohort,—important occasionally, but always accidental.
There is no evidence that the great men of England, the Godwines, or
Leófrics, were ever Húscarlas, or that the leaders of this force were
ever Ealdormen or Geréfan. In fact it was the king’s “Army-club,” and
had neither constitutional place nor recognized power. The Húscarlas
were probably very like what the Mousquetaires and Gardes-de-corps
were in France before the first Revolution, and what the Lifeguards,
Leib-regimente, Guardia Real, and so on, have been in other states of
Europe; nor altogether unlike the Garde Impériale of Napoleon.
Footnote 291:
Three thousand men, all disciplined, all well-armed, all united by the
certainty that the struggle must be for life or death, formed a force
morally, if not physically and numerically, superior to any that could
be brought against them on a sudden. Such a body were amply secure in
a state which could only set on foot a clumsy and reluctant militia.
They were, in fact, nearly the only professional soldiers,—and as yet
there had been no Rocroy, Sempach or Morgarten.
Footnote 292:
Adam Bremen. ii. 48, 59; iii. 21.
Footnote 293:
Suen Aggon. i. cap. 10.
Footnote 294:
Sax. Chron. 1049. Will. Malm. lib. iv. de Willelmo Secundo, an. 1088
(Hardy’s ed. ii. 489). But Lappenberg’s conclusion is not justified by
the premises, for Niðing, which Mat. Paris declares to have been so
especially an Anglosaxon word as to be untranslatable, was probably in
use as a term of supreme contempt, long before the establishment of
the Húscarlas in England and long after their disbanding.
-----
The details of this law are of the most stringent description,
regulating even the minutest points of social intercourse. Its extreme
punishment was expulsion; but expulsion was nearly equivalent to death,
situated as the Húscarlas were expected to be, among a hostile
population. And though the offending brother had his election, whether
he would retire from the gild by sea or land, yet the circumstances
which attended his ejection were not those of mercy or alleviation. To
the seashore, the whole body of his ancient comrades were to accompany
him; then launching him in a boat, with oars or sails, they were to
commit him to his fortune: henceforth he was not only a stranger but an
enemy, an outlaw: if stress of weather or other accident brought him
back to the shore, he might be fallen upon and slain without remorse or
retribution. Or if he chose to retire by land, he was to be led to the
nearest wood, and there to be watched till his form was lost in the
darkness of the thickets: three successive shouts were then to be
raised, to warn him of the direction in which his gild-brothers lay in
wait. If then, through the devious error of the forest he returned into
their presence, his life was forfeit. To insult, injure or dishonour a
brother was an offence punished with the utmost severity; and if three
of the Húscarlas concurred in accusing one of the body, there was
neither denial nor exculpation allowed; the penalty followed inevitably.
Such severe regulations as these fully explain their object; and it
seems to have been successfully attained, for we are told that, at least
during the life of Cnut, the penalties were never once incurred or
enforced[295].
Footnote 295:
Except in his own case, where they were incurred, but not enforced.
The story (found in great detail in Saxo-Grammaticus, book x.) seems
exaggerated; but nevertheless it is easy to see that the strict
application of the law to the king would have caused the destruction
of the whole system. As they could not do without Cnut, and had no law
whereby to judge him, save the one whose application in his case was
impossible, they suffered him to assess his own penalty. He paid nine
times the wergyld of the brother he had slain.
From the collocation of names among the witnesses to a very important
charter of 1052-1054, we may infer that the Stealleras or Marshals were
the commanding officers of the Húscarlas[296]. We cannot doubt that they
did really exercise an important personal influence in England, although
they filled no recognized position under the law: it is probable that
they were reckoned as thanes or ministers, as far as their wergyld and
heriot were concerned; but we have no evidence of this, and I should not
dispute the assertion that from first to last they had a law of their
own,—a personal right,—that they were not generally or originally
landowners, and that their institution was a modified revival of the
system of the Comitatus in its strictest form. But upon these points we
cannot decide. It is very rarely that we find the Húscarlas acting as
witnesses to charters, which perhaps may lead to the inference that they
were not members of the Witena gemót[297]: but in 1041 we are told that
Hardacnut sent two of his Húscarlas, Feader and Turstan, to collect an
unpopular tax, and that a sedition was raised against them in Worcester,
which was not suppressed till the force of several counties, under the
most celebrated leaders of the day, was brought against the city[298].
Footnote 296:
Cod. Dipl. No. 956. After the testimonies of the king, queen,
archbishops, bishops, earls, and abbots, we have, “And on Esgáres
stealres, and on Raulfes stealres, and on Lifinges stealres, and on
ealra ðæs kynges húscarlan.” Then follow the subscriptions of
chaplains and others.
Footnote 297:
But Wulfnoð a húscarl is mentioned, Cod. Dipl. No. 845, and Urk, a
húscarl in No. 871, both as grantees. So again Þurstán húscarl, a
holder of land in Middlesex. Cod. Dipl. No. 843.
Footnote 298:
Flor. Wig. an. 1041.
-----
In a charter of the Confessor, we find the word Húscarl translated by
“praefectus palatinus[299],”—a title which scarcely seems applicable to
all the members of a body numbering six, or even three, thousand men:
but, however this may be, we must not confound these _praefecti
palatini_ with the other, earlier _praefecti_ who occur in Anglosaxon
history[300]: these are clearly only geréfan or reeves, and have nothing
to do with the especial body of household troops.
-----
Footnote 299:
Cod. Dipl. No. 843.
Footnote 300:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 746, 751, 762, 767.
-----
It remains only to add that, in imitation of the king, the great nobles
surrounded themselves with a body-guard of Húscarlas[301], who probably
stood in the same relation to their lord, as he did to the king: in
short the institution is only a revival of the Comitatus, described in
the First Book, and must have gone through a similar course of
development. Nay, the details which have reached us of the later
establishment may possibly throw light upon the earlier, and serve to
explain some of the peculiarities which strike us in the account of
Tacitus. This difference indeed there is, that in the later form the
king and the comites unite in a definite bond, with respective,
stipulated rights; in the earlier form, the comites attach themselves to
the king, without stipulation or reserve, although no doubt under the
protection of a customary and recognized, although unwritten, law.
-----
Footnote 301:
Florence of Worcester, speaking of the revolt of the Northumbrians
against their duke Tostig, in 1065, says: “Eodem die primitus illius
Danicos húscarlas Amundum et Ravensueartum, de fuga retractos, extra
civitatis muros, ac die sequente plus quam cc. viros ex curialibus
illius in boreali parte Humbrae fluminis peremerunt.” an. 1065. One
manuscript of the Saxon Chronicle thus relates these events: “And sona
æfter ðison gegaderedon ða þegenas hi ealle on Eoforwícscyre ⁊ on
Norðhymbralande togædere, ⁊ geútlagedan heora eorl Tosti, ⁊ ofslógon
his hírédmenn ealle ðe hig mihten tócumen.” But another says:
“Tostiges eorles húskarlas ðar ofslógon, ealle ða ðe hig geáxian
mihton.” Hírédmen are _familiares_, those who live in the house, or
form part of the house or family; and this seems the original and
strict definition of the húscarl.
-----
CHAPTER IV.
THE EALDORMAN OR DUKE.
It is of much less importance to a people, what its constitution is,
than what is its administration; nothing can be easier than to make what
are called charters, and it is a rhetorical commonplace to talk of
resting under a constitution, the growth of ages: but no nation rests,
or ever did rest, under the one or the other. The source of a nation’s
comfort,—of its success in realizing the great principle of the mutual
guarantee of peace, lies in the administration of what is called its
constitution, in the skill with which it has devised its machinery of
government, in the balance of power which it represents in the election
of its instruments. We shall therefore pass now to the members of the
Anglosaxon administration.
The dignity next in importance to the royal, is that of the Ealdorman or
Duke.
The proper Anglosaxon name for this officer, as ruler and leader of an
army, is Heretoga, in Old-german Herizohho, and in modern German,
Herzog,—a word compounded of _Here_ an army, and _toga_ a leader[302].
It is in this sense only that Tacitus appears to understand the word
Dux, when he tells us that dukes (i. e. generals) are chosen for their
valour, in contradistinction to kings, who are recommended by their
birth. But inasmuch as the ducal functions in the Anglosaxon polity were
by no means confined to service in the field, the peculiar title of
Heretoga is very rarely met with, being for the most part replaced by
Ealdorman or Aldorman, which denotes civil as well as military
preeminence. The word Heretoga accordingly is nowhere found in the Saxon
Chronicle, or in the Laws, except in one late passage interpolated into
the collection called the Laws of Eádweard the Confessor, and to the
best of my remembrance it is found but once in the Charters[303]. From a
very extensive and careful comparison between the titles used in
different documents, it appears that Latin writers of various periods,
as Beda, the several compilers of Annals, and the writers of charters,
have used the words Dux, Princeps and Comes, in a very arbitrary manner
to denote the holders of one and the same office. It is indeed just
possible that the grant of peculiar and additional privileges may have
been supposed to make a distinction between the duke and the prince, as
the charters appear to show something like a system of promotion at
least among the Mercian nobility, the same person being found to sign
for some time as dux, and afterwards as princeps. In consequence of this
confusion, it is necessary to proceed with very great caution the moment
we leave contemporaneous history, and become dependent upon the
expressions of annalists long subsequent to the events described: for
strictly and legally speaking, the words count, duke and prince express
very different ranks and functions.
-----
Footnote 302:
In this sense the Sax. Chron. translates the word _duces_ applied by
Beda to Hengest and Hors, by _heretogan_: an. 448.
Footnote 303:
It occurs however in the document called “Institutes of Polity:”
Thorpe, ii. 319: but these can hardly be considered authority for a
strict _legal_ use of words.
-----
The pure Anglosaxon authorities however are incapable of making any such
blunder or falling into any such confusion: where Simeon of Durham,
Florence of Worcester, Æðelweard, Henry of Huntingdon, nay even Beda
himself, use Consul, Princeps, Dux and Comes, the Saxon Chronicle and
the charters composed in Saxon have invariably Ealdorman. A few
instances, down to the time of Cnut, when a new organization, and with
it a new title, was adopted, will make this clear[304].
-----
Footnote 304:
Beorht ealdorman. Chron. an. 684. Dux. Beda, iv. 26. Flor. 684.
699.
Æðelhun 750. Dux. Æðelw. ii. Flor. 750. Consul.
H. Hunt. iv.
Beorhtfríð 710. Præfectus. Flor, 710.
Cumbra 755. Dux. Æðelw. ii. 17. Flor. 755.
Consul. H. Hunt. iv.
Ósríc 755. Dux. Æðelw. ii. 17. Flor. 784.
Beorn 780. Patricius. Sim. D. 780. Consul et
justiciarius. H. Hunt. iv.
Æðelheard 794.
Wor 800.
Æðelmund 800. Dux. Flor. 800. Consul. H. Hunt.
iv.
Weohstán 800. Dux. Flor. 800. Consul. H. Hunt.
iv.
Heábyrht 805. Comes. Flor. 805.
Eádbyrht 819.
Burghard 822. Dux. Flor. 822.
Muca 822. Dux. Flor. 822.
Wulfheard 823. Dux. Flor. 823. Consul. H. Hunt.
iv.
Ealdormen 825. Duces. Flor. 825.
Dudda 833.
Ósmód 833.
Wulfheard 837. Dux. Flor. 837.
Æðelhelm 837. Dux. Flor. 837.
Herebyrht 838. Dux. Flor. 838.
Eánwulf 845. Dux. Flor. 845.
Ósríc 845. Dux. Flor. 845.
Ceorl 851. Comes. Flor. 851.
Ealhhere 851, 853. Comes. Flor. 851, 853.
Æðelheard 852.
Hunberht 852. Comes. Flor. 852.
Huda 853. Comes. Flor. 853.
Ósríc 860. Comes. Flor. 860.
Æðelwulf 860, 871. Comes. Flor. 860, 871.
Æðelred 886. Comes. Flor. 886. Dux. Flor. 894.
Æðelhelm 886, 894, 898. Dux. Flor. 894.
Beocca 888. Dux. Flor. 889.
Æðelwold 888. Dux. Flor. 889.
Æðelred 894. Dux. Flor. 894.
Æðelnóð 894. Dux. Flor. 894.
Ceólwulf 897. Dux. Flor. 897.
Beorhtwulf 897. Dux. Flor. 897.
Wulfred 897.
Æðelred 901.
Æðelwulf 903. Dux. Flor. 903.
Sigewulf 905. Dux. Flor. 905.
Sigehelm 905. Comes. Flor. 905.
Æðelred 912. Dominus et subregulus. Flor. 912.
Ælfgár 946.
Ordgár 965. Dux. Flor. 964.
Ælfhere 980, 983. Dux. Flor. 979.
Æðelmǽr 982. Dux. Flor. 982.
Eádwine 982. Dux. Flor. 982.
Ælfríc 983, 985, 992, 993. Dux. Flor. 983.
Birhtnóð 991. Dux. Flor. 991.
Æðelwine 992. Dux. Flor. 992.
Æðelweard 994. Dux. Flor. 994.
Leófsige 1002. Dux. Flor. 1002.
Ælfhelm 1006. Dux. Flor. 1006.
Eádríc 1007, 1009, 1012, 1015, 1016. Dux. Flor.
in an.
Æðelmǽr ealdorman 1013. Comes. Flor. 1013.
Ælfríc 1016. Dux. Flor. 1016.
Godwine 1016. Dux. Flor. 1016.
Æðelwine 1016. Dux. Flor. 1016.
The same thing is observable in the charters: thus Óswulf Aldormon,
Cod. Dipl. No. 226, but “Dux et princeps Orientalis Canciae,” No. 256.
Again the nobleman who in the body of the charter No. 219 is called
Eádwulf ealdorman, signs himself among the witnesses, Eádwulf Dux.
-----
The word _ealdor_ or _aldor_ in Anglosaxon denotes princely dignity
without any definition of function whatever. In Beówulf it is used as a
synonym for cyning, þeóden and other words applied to royal personages.
Like many other titles of rank in the various Teutonic tongues, it is
derived from an adjective implying age, though practically this idea
does not by any means survive in it, any more than it does in the word
Senior, the origin of the feudal term Seigneur[305]; and similarly the
words “ða yldestan witan,” literally the eldest councillors, are used to
express merely the most dignified[306].
-----
Footnote 305:
The Roman _Senatus_, the Greek γερουσία, the ecclesiastical
πρεσβύτεροι are all examples of a like usage.
Footnote 306:
Chron. Sax. an. 978.
-----
If we compare the position and powers of the ealdorman with those of the
duke on the continent, we shall find several points of difference which
deserve notice. In the imperial constitution of the German states, as it
was modified and settled by Charlemagne, the duke was a superior officer
to the comes, count or graf, and a duchy for the most part comprehended
several counties, over which the duke exercised an immediate
jurisdiction[307]. Occasionally no doubt there were counties without
duchies, and duchies without counties, that is where the duke and count
were the same person: sometimes the dukes were hereditary dynasts,
representing sovereign families which had become subject to the empire
of the Franks, and who continued to govern as imperial officers the
populations which either by conquest or alliance had become incorporated
with it; such were the dukes in Bavaria and Swabia. In other cases they
were generals, exercising supreme military power over extensive
districts committed to their charge, and mediately entrusted with the
defence and government of the Markgraviats or border-counties which were
established for the security of the frontiers. The variable, and very
frequently exceptional, position of these nobles or ministerials, while
it renders it difficult to give an accurate description of their powers
which shall be applicable to all cases, often accounts for the events by
which we are led to recognize modern kingdoms in the ancient duchies,
and to trace the derived and mediate authority down to its establishment
as independent royalty.
-----
Footnote 307:
I refer generally here to the doctrines of Eichhorn, Staats- und
Rechtsgesch. i. 460. etc.; and to the works of the great German
authors who have treated this subject and others connected with it,
more especially to Dönniges, Deutsches Staatsrecht, p. 96 _seq._
-----
But this state of things which was possible in an empire comprising a
vast extent of lands held by tribes of different descent, language, and
laws, and often hostile to one another, was not to be expected in a
country like England. Neither were the districts here sufficiently
large, nor in general was the national feeling in those districts
sufficiently strong, to produce similar results. Strictly speaking,
during what has been loosely termed the Heptarchy, the various kingdoms
or rather principal kingdoms bore a much greater resemblance to the
Frankish duchies, and the small subordinate principalities to the
counties; and could we admit the existence of a central authority or
Bretwaldadom, we should find a considerable resemblance between the two
forms: but this is in fact impossible: the kings, such as they were,
continued to enjoy all the royal rights in their limited districts; and
the dukes remained merely ministerial officers, of great dignity indeed,
but with well-defined and not very extensive powers. The rebellion of a
duke in English seems nearly as rare as it is frequent in German
history. We may therefore conclude that the Anglosaxon Ealdorman in
reality represented the Graf or Count of the Germans, before the powers
of the latter had been seriously abridged by the imperial constitution
of the Carlovings, by the growing authority of the duke, the Missus or
royal messenger and the bishop. And this will tend to explain the
comparatively subordinate position of the geréfa, who answers, in little
more than name, to the Graphio or Graf.
In the Anglosaxon laws we find many provisions respecting the powers and
dignity of the ealdorman, which it will be necessary to examine in
detail. It is highly probable that different races and kingdoms adopted
a somewhat different course with respect to them,—a course rendered
inevitable by the connection of the ealdorman with territorial
government. The laws of the Kentish kings do not make any mention of
such an officer: the ceorl, eorl and king are the only free classes
whose proportionable value they notice; and if there were ealdormen at
all, they were comprised in the great caste of eorls or nobles by birth,
even as Æðelberht’s law uses _eorlcund_, that is of earl’s rank, as a
synonym for _betst_, that is the best or highest rank[308]. In the law
of Eádríc and Hlóðhere, though various judicial proceedings are referred
to, we hear nothing of the ealdorman: suit is to be prosecuted at the
king’s hall[309], before the stermelda[310], or the wícgeréfa[311], but
no other officer is mentioned; probably because at this period, the
little kingdoms into which Kent itself was divided, supplied ample
machinery for doing justice, without the establishment of ealdormen for
that or any other purpose. The law of Wihtræd has no provision of the
sort, and it is remarkable that in the proem to his dooms, which a king
always declares to be made with the counsel, consent and license of his
nobles, the word _eádigan_, the wealthy or powerful, twice occurs[312],
but not the word _ealdormen_. I therefore think it probable that Kent
had no such officers at the commencement of the eighth century[313].
-----
Footnote 308:
“Mund ðǽre betstan widuwan eorlcundre, fiftig scillinga gebéte.” For
the mund of a widow of the highest class, that is of earl’s degree, be
the bót fifty shillings. Æðelb. § 75. Thorpe, i. 20.
Footnote 309:
Eád. Hlóð. § 5. Thorpe, i. 28.
Footnote 310:
Eád. Hlóð. § 7, 16. Thorpe, i. 30, 34.
Footnote 311:
Eád. Hlóð. § 16. Thorpe, i. 34.
Footnote 312:
Leg. Wiht. Thorpe, i. 36.
Footnote 313:
I do not think the expression of the Sax. Chron. an. 568 can be
considered to contradict this. The ealdormen recorded there are merely
princes in a general sense: as are Cerdíc and Cyneríc named an. 495,
just as the same Chronicle an. 465 mentions twelve Welsh ealdormen. So
also in 653, Peada the king of the Southangles is called aldorman. The
Kentish charters in which we find Hamgisilus, _dux_, and Graphio,
_comes_, are impudent forgeries. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 2, 3, 4.
-----
In general Beda uses the words _tribunus_ or _praefectus_ to express the
authority of a royal officer either in the field or the city: with him
_comes_ represents the old and proper sense of the king’s comrade, as we
find it in Tacitus, and _dux_ is applied in the Roman sense to the
leader or captain of a _corps d’armée_. But it is possible that in one
passage he may have had something more in view, where he states that
after the death of Peada, that is in 661, the dukes of the Mercians,
Immin, Eaba and Eádberht rebelled against Osuuiu of Northumberland and
raised Wulfhere to his father’s throne[314]; and he goes on to say that,
having expelled the princes,—“principibus eiectis,”—whom the foreign
king had imposed upon them, they recovered both their boundaries and
their liberty. It is every way probable both that the Mercian dukes and
Northumbrian princes mentioned in this passage were fiscal and
administrative, not merely military officers[315]. Not much later than
this we find dukes in Wessex[316] and Sussex[317]; and from this period
we can follow the dukes with little intermission till the close of the
genuine Anglosaxon rule with Eádmund Irensída.
-----
Footnote 314:
Beda, H. E. iii. 24.
Footnote 315:
The forged foundation charter of Peterborough mentions the following
ealdormen: Immin, Eádberht, Herefrið, Wilberht, Abon.—Chron. Sax. 657.
Cod. Dipl. No. 986.
Footnote 316:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 31, 54, 987, etc.
Footnote 317:
Ibid. No. 994. Beda, H. E. iv. 13.
-----
From the time of Ini of Wessex we have the means of tracing the
institution with some certainty; and we may thus commence our enquiry
with the first years of the eighth century, nearly one hundred years
before Charlemagne modified and recast the German empire. At first the
ealdormen are few in number, but increase as the circuit of the kingdom
extends; we can thus follow them in connection with the political
advance of the several countries, till we find at one time no less than
three dukes at once in Kent, and sixteen in Mercia. This number attended
a witena gemót held by Coenwulf in the year 814.
The reason of this was, that the ealdorman was inseparable from a shire
or gá: the territorial and political divisions went together, and as
conquest increased or defeat diminished the number of shires comprised
in a kingdom, we find a corresponding increase or diminution in the
number of dukes attendant upon the king. Ælfred decides that if a man
wish to leave one lord and seek another, (hláfordsócn, a right possessed
by all freemen,) he is to do so with the witness of the ealdorman whom
he before followed in his shire, that is, whose court and military
muster he had been bound to attend[318]: and Ini declares that the
ealdorman who shall be privy to the escape of a thief shall forfeit his
shire, unless he can obtain the king’s pardon[319]. The proportionably
great severity of this punishment arises, and most justly so, from the
circumstance of the ealdorman being the principal judicial officer in
the county, as the Graf was among the Franks. The fiftieth law of Ini
provides for the case where a man compounds for offences committed by
any of his household, where suit has been either made before the
king-himself or the king’s ealdorman[320]. He was commanded to hold a
shiremoot or general county-court twice in the year, where in company of
the bishop lie was to superintend the administration of civil, criminal
and ecclesiastical law: Eádgár enacts[321],—“Twice in the year be a
shiremoot held; and let both the bishop of the shire and the ealdorman
be present, and there expound both the law of God, and of the world:”
which enactment is repeated in nearly the same words by Cnut[322]. And
this is consistent with a regulation of Ælfred, by which a heavy fine is
inflicted upon him who shall break the public peace by fighting or even
drawing his weapon in the Folcmoot before the king’s ealdorman[323]. In
the year 780 we learn from the Saxon Chronicle that the high-reeves or
noble geréfan of Northumberland burned Beorn the ealdorman to death at
Seletún[324]: but Henry of Huntingdon records the same fact with more
detail: he says[325],—“The year after this the princes and chief
officers of Northumberland burned to death a certain _consul_ and
justiciary of theirs, because he was more severe than was right:” from
which it would appear not only that this ealdorman had been guilty of
cruelty and oppression in the exercise of his judicial functions, but,
from the hint of Simeon, also that the king acquiesced in his
punishment. We have occasional records in the Saxon charters which show
that the shiremoot for judicial purposes was presided over by the
ealdorman of the shire. In 825 there was an interesting trial touching
the rights of pasture belonging to Worcester cathedral, which the public
officers had encroached upon: it was arranged in a synod held at
Clofeshoo, that the bishop should give security to the ealdorman and
witan of the county, to make good his claim on oath, which was done
within a month at Worcester, in the presence of Háma the woodreeve, who
attended on behalf of Eádwulf the ealdorman[326]. Another very important
document records a trial which took place about 1038 in Herefordshire:
the shiremoot sat at Ægelnóðes stán, and was held by Æðelstán the
bishop, and Ranig the ealdorman in the presence of the county
thanes[327]. Another but undated record of a shiremoot held at Worcester
again presents us with the presidency of an ealdorman, Leófwine[328].
-----
Footnote 318:
Leg. Ælfr. § 37. Thorpe, i. 86.
Footnote 319:
“Gif he ealdormon síe, þolie his scíre, búton him cyning árian wille.”
Log. Ini, § 36. Thorpe, i. 124.
Footnote 320:
Thorpe, i. 134.
Footnote 321:
Eádgar, ii. § 5. Thorpe, i. 268.
Footnote 322:
Cnut, Sec. § 18. Thorpe, i. 386. And so in the Frankish law the graff
or count was to hold his court together with the bishop. Dönniges, p.
29.
Footnote 323:
Ælfr. § 38. Thorpe, i. 86.
Footnote 324:
Chron. Sax. an. 780.
Footnote 325:
Hen. Hunt, book iv. “Anno autem hunc sequente principes et praepositi
Nordhumbre quendam consulem et justiciarium suum, quia rigidior aequo
extiterat, combusserunt.” This seems like a judicial execution, not a
mere act of popular vengeance. Simeon however says, “Osbald et
Æðelheard duces, congregate exercitu, Bearn patricium Elfuualdi regis
in Seletune succenderunt ix Kal. Jan.,” which can hardly be anything
but what is referred to in the entry of the preceding year, where
Simeon says of Ælfwald, “Erat enim rex pius et iustus, ut sequens
demonstrabit articulus.” Sim. Gest. Reg. an. 779, 780.
Footnote 326:
Cod. Dipl. No. 219.
Footnote 327:
Ibid. No. 755.
Footnote 328:
Ibid. No. 898.
-----
It is thus clear that the ealdorman really stood at the head of the
justice of the county, and for this purpose there can be no doubt that
he possessed full power of holding plea, and proceeding to execution
both in civil and criminal cases. The scírmen, scírgeréfan or sheriffs
were his officers, and acted by his authority, a point to which I shall
return hereafter. That the executive as well as the judicial authority
resided in the ealdorman and his officers seems to me unquestionable:
Ælfred directs that no private feud shall be permitted, except in
certain grave cases, but that if a man beleaguers his foe in his own
house, he shall summon him to surrender his weapons and stand to trial.
If the complainant be not powerful enough to enforce this, he is to
apply to the ealdorman (a mode of expression which implies the presence
of one in every shire), and on his refusal to assist, resort may be had
to the king[329]. For this there was also good reason: the ealdorman in
the shire, like the Frankish graf, was the military leader of the
_hereban_, posse comitatus or levy _en masse_ of the freemen, and as
such could command their services to repel invasion or to exercise the
functions of the higher police: as a noble of the first rank he had
armed retainers, thanes or comites of his own; but his most important
functions were as leader of the armed force of the shire. Throughout the
Saxon times we read of ealdormen at the head of particular counties,
doing service in the field: thus in 800 we hear of a battle between the
Mercian ealdorman Æðelmund with the Hwiccas, and the Westsaxon Weoxstán
with the men of Wiltshire[330]: in 837, Æðelhelm led the men of Dorset
against the Danes[331]: in 845 Eánwulf with the men of Somerset, and
Osríc with the men of Dorset, obtained a bloody victory over the same
adversaries[332]: in 853 a similar fortune attended Ealhhere with the
men of Kent, and IIuda with them of Surrey, the latter of whom had
marched from their own county into Thanet, in pursuit of the enemy[333].
In 860, Osríc with his men of Hampshire, and ealdorman Æðelwulf with the
power of Berkshire, gave the Danes an overthrow in the neighbourhood of
Winchester[334]; in 905 the men of Kent with Sigewulf and Sigehelm their
ealdormen were defeated on the banks of the Ouse[335]: lastly in 1016,
we find Eádríc the ealdorman deserting Eádmund Irensída in battle with
the Magesætan or people of Herefordshire[336],—a treason which
ultimately led to the division of England between Eádmund and Cnut, and
later to the monarchy of the latter. Everywhere the ealdorman is
identified with the military force of his shire or county, as we have
already seen that he was with the administration of justice.
-----
Footnote 329:
Leg. Ælfr. § 42. Thorpe, i. 90.
Footnote 330:
Chron. Sax. an. 800.
Footnote 331:
Ibid. an. 837.
Footnote 332:
Ibid. an. 845.
Footnote 333:
Ibid. an. 853.
Footnote 334:
Ibid. an. 860.
Footnote 335:
Ibid. an. 905.
Footnote 336:
Ibid. an. 1016. Other instances of ealdormen as military leaders, but
without reference to particular localities, may be found in the Chron.
Sax. under the years, 684, 699, 710, 823, 825, 838, 851, 871, 894,
992, 993, 1003, etc., and in all the annalists.
-----
The internal regulation of the shire, as well as its political relation
to the whole kingdom, were under the immediate guidance and supervision
of the ealdorman: the scírgeréfa or sheriff was little more than his
deputy: it is not to be doubted that the cyninges geréfan, wícgeréfan
and túngeréfan were under his superintendence and command, and it would
almost appear as if he possessed the right to appoint as well as control
these officers: at all events we find some of them intended by the
expression “ðæs ealdormonnes gingran,” literally the ealdorman’s
subordinate officers; Ælfred having affixed a severe punishment to the
offence of breaking the peace of the folcmoot, in the ealdorman’s
presence, continues: “If anything of this sort happen before a king’s
ealdorman’s subordinate officer, or a king’s priest, let the fine be
thirty shillings[337].”
-----
Footnote 337:
Leg. Ælfr. § 38. Thorpe, i. 86.
-----
In the year 995 certain brothers, apparently persons of some
consideration, having been involved in an accusation of theft, a
tumultuary affray took place, in which, amongst others, they were slain:
the king’s wícgeréfan in Oxford and Buckingham permitted their bodies to
be laid in consecrated ground: but the ealdorman of the district, on
being apprised of the facts, attempted to reverse the judgment of the
wic-reeves[338]. It would therefore appear that these officers were
subordinated to his authority. The analogy which we everywhere trace
between the ealdorman and the graf, induces the conclusion that the
former was the head fiscal officer of the shire; and that, in this as in
all other cases, the scírgeréfawas his officer and accounted to him.
-----
Footnote 338:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1289.
-----
The means by which his dignity was supported were, strictly speaking,
supplied by the state: they consisted in the first place of lands within
his district[339], which appear to have passed with the office, and
consequently to have been inalienable by any particular holder: but he
also derived a considerable income from the fines and other moneys
levied to the king’s use, his share of which probably amounted to
one-third[340]. But as it invariably happened that the ealdorman was
appointed from among the class of higher nobles, it is certain that he
always possessed large landed estates of his own[341], either by
inheritance or royal grant: moreover it is probable that among a people
in that stage of society in which we find the Saxons, voluntary
offerings to no small amount would find their way into the spence or
treasury of so powerful an officer: no one ever approaches a Pacha
without a present. One form of such gratuities we can trace in the
charters; I mean the grant of estates either for lives or perpetuity,
made by the clergy in consideration of support and protection; thus in
855, we find that Ealhhun, bishop of Worcester, and his chapter gave
eleven hides of land to duke Æðelwulf and Wulfðrýð, his duchess, for
their lives, on condition that he would be a good and true friend to the
monastery, and protector of its liberties[342]. Fifty years later, in
904, Werfrið and the same chapter granted to duke Æðelred, his duchess
and their daughter, a vill in Worcester and about 132 acres of arable
and meadow land, for three lives, with reversion to the see, on
condition that they would be good friends and protectors to the
chapter[343]. It is likewise probable that even if no settled, legal
share of the plunder were his of right, still his opportunities of
enriching himself in his capacity of general were not inconsiderable: he
must for instance have had the ransom of all prisoners of any
distinction, or the price of their sale. And lastly in his public
capacity he must always have had a sufficient supply of convict as well
as voluntary labour at command, to ensure the profitable cultivation of
his land, and the safe keeping of his flocks and herds. There cannot be
the slightest doubt that he also possessed all the regalia in his own
lands whether public or private, and that thus, wreck, treasure-trove,
fines for harbouring of outlaws, and many other bóts or legal
amerciaments passed into his hands. There are even slight indications
that he, like many of the bishops, possessed the right to coin money;
and in every case, he must have had the superintendence of the royal
mint, and therefore probably the forfeiture of all unlicensed moneyers.
In addition to all this, we cannot doubt that his power and influence
pointed him out as the lord who could best be relied upon for protection
and favour; and we may therefore conclude that commendation of estates
to him was not unusual, from all which estates he would receive not only
recognitory services, and yearly _gafol_ or rent in labour and produce,
but in all probability also fines on demise or alienation.
-----
Footnote 339:
I cannot otherwise account for the mention of “ðæs ealdormonnes lond,
ðæs ealdormonnes mearc, gemǽro,” etc. which so often occur. The
boundaries of charters not being accidental and fluctuating, but
permanent, it follows that “the alderman’s mark” was so also.
Footnote 340:
“Dovere reddebat 18 libras, de quibus denariis habebat rex Edwardus
duas partes et comes Goduinus tertiam.” Domesd. Chenth. Whether all
the estates of folcland were charged with payments to the duke is
uncertain, but yet this is probable. The monastery lands appear to
have been so; for in 848 Hunberht, ealdorman, prince or duke of the
Tonsetan, released the monastery of Bredon from all payments
heretofore due from that monastery to himself, or generally to the
princes of that district. Cod. Dipl. No. 261. Again in 836, Wigláf of
Mercia granted to the monastery at Hanbury perfect freedom and
exemption from all demands, known and unknown, save the three
inevitable burthens: the ealdormen Sigered and Mucel, whose rights
were thus diminished, were indemnified, the first with a purse of six
hundred shillings in gold, the second with three hundred acres at
Croglea. Cod. Dipl. No. 237.
Footnote 341:
The highest rank, that is the ealdorman’s, appears to have implied the
absolute possession of land to the amount of 40 hides, or 1200 acres.
See Hist. Eliens. ii. 40: “Sed quoniam ille 40 hidarum terrae dominium
minime obtineret, licet nobilis esset, inter proceres tunc nominari
non potuit,” etc. The charters show what large estates were devised by
many of these ealdormen.
Footnote 342:
Cod. Dipl. No. 279.
Footnote 343:
Ibid. No. 339.
-----
Thus the position which his nobility, his power and his wealth secured
to the ealdorman was a brilliant one. In fact the whole executive
government may be considered as a great aristocratical association, of
which the ealdormen were the constituent members, and the king little
more than the president. They were in nearly every respect his equals,
and possessed the right of intermarriage with him[344]: it was solely
with their consent that he could be elected or appointed to the crown,
and by their support, co-operation and alliance that he was maintained
there. Without their concurrence and assent, their license and
permission, he could not make, abrogate or alter laws: they were the
principal witan or counsellors, the leaders of the great gemót or
national inquest, the guardians, upholders and regulators of that
aristocratical power of which he was the ultimate representative and
head. The wergyld and oath of an ealdorman were in proportion to this
lofty position: at first no doubt, he ranked only with the general class
of nobles in this respect, and the Kentish law does not distinguish him
from them: but at a later period, when the aristocratical hierarchy had
somewhat better developed itself, we find him rated on the same level
with the bishop, and above the ordinary nobles. From the chapter
concerning wergylds[345], we find that the Northumbrian law rated the
ealdorman at something more than thirty times the value of the ceorl,
while in Mercia we hear only of thanes or twelve-hynde men, worth six
times the ceorl or two-hynde man: and in Kent the eorl seems to have
exceeded the ceorl by three times only.
-----
Footnote 344:
This would follow from their original nobility, which made them of
equal birth with the king: but there is a case which seems to show
that the rank itself of ealdorman sufficed to give this privilege.
Eádríc ealdorman of Mercia, who is said to have been of low
extraction, married a sister of Cnut; and Eádweard the Confessor had a
daughter of earl Godwine to wife. The other case was common: “And
Æðelflǽd æt Domerhamme, Ælfgáres dohtor ealdormannes, wæs ðá his
cwen,” _i. e._ Eádmund’s. Chron. Sax. an. 946. “Eádgár cyning genam
Ælfðrýðe him tó cwene; heó wæs Ordgáres dohtor ealdormannes.” Chron.
Sax. 965. The Anglosaxon kings were in fact very rarely married to
foreign princesses, though several of their beautiful daughters found
husbands on the continent.
Footnote 345:
Thorpe, i. 187. An ealdorman or bishop = 8000 thryms: a ceorl only
266.
-----
But the value of the wergyld was not the only measure of the ealdorman’s
dignity. His oath bore the same proportion to that of the ceorl, and I
think we may assume that this relative proportion was maintained
throughout all ranks. The law respecting oaths declares that the oath of
a twelve-hynde shall be equal to those of six ceorlas, because if one
would avenge a twelve-hynde it can be fully done upon six ceorlas, and
his wergyld is equal to their six[346]. His house was in some sort a
sanctuary, and any wrong-doer who fled to it had three days’
respite[347]; if any one broke the peace therein, he was liable to a
heavy fine[348]; his burhbryce, or the mulct for violation of his
castle, was eighty shillings[349], which however the law of Ælfred
reduces to sixty[350]; for a breach of his borh or surety, and his
mundbyrd or protection, a fine of two pounds was imposed[351]; his
Fihtwíte, or the penalty imposed upon the man who drew sword and fought
in his presence, was one hundred shillings[352], which was increased to
one hundred and twenty if the offence was committed in the open court of
justice[353]. The only person who enjoys a higher state, beside the
king, is the archbishop; and this pre-eminence may probably have once
been due to the heathen high-priest; just as, indeed, the equality of
the bishop and ealdorman may have been traditionally handed down from a
period when the priesthood and the highest nobility formed one body.
There is no very distinct intimation of any peculiar dress or decoration
by which the ealdorman was distinguished, but he probably wore a beáh or
ring upon his head, the fetel or embroidered belt, and the golden hilt
which seems to have been peculiar to the noble class. The staff and
sword were probably borne by him as symbols of his civil and criminal
jurisdiction.
-----
Footnote 346:
Thorpe, i. 182.
Footnote 347:
Leg. Æðelst. iii. § 6, but seven days Æðelr. vii. § 5; iv. 4.
Footnote 348:
Leg. Ini, § 6.
Footnote 349:
Leg. Ini, § 45.
Footnote 350:
Leg. Ælfr. § 40.
Footnote 351:
Ibid. § 3. Leg. Cnut, Sec. § 69. Æðelr. vii. § 11.
Footnote 352:
Leg. Ælfr. § 15. Æðelr. vii. § 12.
Footnote 353:
Leg. Ælfr. § 38.
-----
The method then by which this rank was attained becomes of some
interest. And first it is necessary to inquire whether it was hereditary
or not; whether it was for life, or only _durante beneplacito_, or
_benemerito_. That it was not strictly hereditary appears in the
clearest manner from the general fact that the appointments recorded in
the Chronicle and elsewhere are given to nobles unconnected by blood
with the last ealdorman. There are very few instances of an ealdorman’s
rank being held in the same county by a father and son in succession.
This occurred indeed in Mercia, where in 983 Ælfríc succeeded his father
Ælfhere: Harald followed Godwine in his duchy, and at the same period,
Leófríc and Sigeweard succeeded in establishing a sort of succession in
their families. But when this did take place, it must be looked upon as
a departure from the old principle, and as a thing which in practice
would have been carefully avoided, during the better period of
Anglosaxon history, for which the feeble reign of Æðelred offers no fair
pattern. Under his weak and miserable rule the more powerful nobles
might venture upon usurpations which would have been impossible under
his father. And Cnut’s system of administration was favourable to the
growth of an hereditary order of dukes. A further examination of our
history shows that in general the dignity was held for life; we very
rarely, if ever, hear of an ealdorman removed or promoted from one shire
to another, and the entries in the Chronicle as well as the signatures
to the charters attest that many of their number enjoyed their dignity
for a very large number of years, in spite of the chances of an active
military life. But we do find, and not unfrequently, that ealdormen have
been expelled from their offices for treason and other grave offences.
In the later times of Æðelred, when traitorous dealings with the Danish
enemy offered the means of serving private or family hostility, the
outlawry of the ealdorman who led the different conflicting parties in
the state was common, and similar events accompanied the struggles of
Godwine’s party against the family of Mercia, for the conduct of public
affairs in England[354]. But at a much earlier period we hear of
ealdormen losing their offices and lands: in 901, Eádweard gave to
Winchester ten hides at Wiley, which duke Wulfhere had forfeited by
leaving his king and country without licence[355].
-----
Footnote 354:
See the Chronicle _passim_.
Footnote 355:
“Ista vero praenominata tellus primitus fuit praepeditus a quodam
duce, nomine Wulfhere, et eius uxore, quando ille utrumque et suum
dominum regem Ælfredum et patriam ultra iusiurandum quam regi et suis
omnibus optimatibus iuraverat sine licentia dereliquit. Tunc etiam,
cum omnium iudicio sapientium Gewissorum et Mercensium, potestatem et
haereditatem dereliquit agrorum.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1078.
-----
But if the dignity of ealdorman did not descend by regular succession,
are we to conclude that it was attained by popular election? Such is the
doctrine of the laws commonly attributed to Eádweard the Confessor. In
these we are thus told:—
“There were also other authorities and dignities established throughout
all the provinces and countries, and separate counties of the whole
realm aforesaid, which among the Angles were called Heretoches, being to
wit, barons, noble, of distinguished wisdom, fidelity and courage: but
in Latin these were called _ductores exercitus_, leaders of the army,
and among the Gauls, Capital Constables, or Marshals of the army. They
had the ordering of numerous armies in battle, and placed the wings as
was most fitting, and to them seemed most conducive to the honour of the
crown and the utility of the realm. Now these men were elected by common
counsel for the general weal, throughout all the provinces and
countries, and the several counties, in full folkmote, as the sheriffs
of the provinces and counties ought also to be elected: so that in every
county there was one heretoch elected to lead the array of his county,
according to the precept of our lord the king, to the honour and
advantage of the crown of the realm aforesaid, whenever need should be
in the realm[356].”
-----
Footnote 356:
Thorpe, i. 456.
-----
To this doctrine I deeply regret that I cannot subscribe. Whatever
remembrance of the earliest periods and their traditions may have lurked
in the mind of the writer, I am compelled to say that his description is
not applicable to any period comprehended in authoritative history. A
real election of a duke or ealdorman by the folcmót may have been known
to the Germans of Tacitus, but I fear not to those who two centuries
later established themselves in England. There cannot, I imagine, be the
slightest doubt that the ealdormen of the several districts were
appointed by the crown, with the assent of the higher nobles, if not of
the whole witena gemót. But it is also probable that in the strict
theory of their appointment, the consent of the county was assumed to be
necessary; and it is possible that, on the return of the newly appointed
ealdorman to his shire, he was regularly received, installed and
inaugurated by acclamation of the shire-thanes, and the oath of office
administered in the shiremoot, whose co-operation and assent in his
election was thus represented. Whatever may have been his original
character, it seems certain that at no time later than the fifth century
could the ealdorman have been the people’s officer, but on the contrary
that he was always the officer of that aristocratical association of
which the king was the head[357].
-----
Footnote 357:
As the king and his witan could unquestionably depose or remove the
ealdorman, we can scarcely doubt their power to appoint him.
-----
Still I do not think that in general the choice of the witan could be a
capricious or an unconditional one. There must have been in every shire
certain powerful families from whose members alone the selection could
be made; the instincts of all aristocracies, as well as the analogy of
other great Anglosaxon dignities, render it certain that the
ealdormannic families, as a general rule, retained this office among
themselves, although the particular one from which the officer should at
any given time be taken were left undecided, for the determination of
the Witan. It was almost necessary policy to place at the head of the
county one of the most highly connected, trustworthy, powerful and
wealthy of its nobles,—less necessary, however usual, _now_ than then,
when the functions of the Lord Lieutenant and the High Sheriff were
united in the same person. It even appears probable, although the
difficulty of tracing the Anglosaxon pedigrees prevents our asserting it
as a positive fact, that the ducal families were in direct descent from
the old regal families, which became mediatized, to use a modern term,
upon the rise of their more fortunate compeers. We know this to have
been the case with Æðelred, duke and viceroy of Mercia under Ælfred and
Eádweard. In the ninth century we find Oswulf, ealdorman of East Kent,
calling himself “Dei gratia dux;” and Sigewulf and Sigehelm, who appear
in the tenth also among the dukes of Kent, were very probably
descendants of Sigeræd, a king of that province.
The new Constitution introduced by Cnut reduced the ealdorman to a
subordinate position: over several counties was now placed one eorl, or
earl, in the northern sense a jarl, with power analogous to that of the
Frankish dukes. The word ealdorman itself was used by the Danes to
denote a class, gentle indeed, but very inferior to the princely
officers who had previously borne that title: it is under Cnut, and the
following Danish kings that we gradually lose sight of the old
ealdormen; the king rules by his earls and his Húscarlas, and the
ealdormen vanish from the counties. From this time the king’s writs are
directed to the earl, the bishop and the sheriff of the county, but in
no one of them does the title of the ealdorman any longer occur; while
those sent to the towns are directed to the bishop and the portgeréfa or
præfect of the city. Gradually the old title ceases altogether except in
the cities, where it denotes an inferior judicature, much as it does
among ourselves at the present day.
CHAPTER V.
THE GERÉFA.
The most general name for the fiscal, administrative and executive
officer among the Anglosaxons was Geréfa, or as it is written in very
early documents geróefa[358]: but the peculiar functions of the
individuals comprehended under it, were further defined by a prefix
compounded with it, as scírgeréfa, the reeve of the shire or sheriff:
túngeréfa the reeve of the farm or bailiff. The exact meaning and
etymology of this name have hitherto eluded the researches of our best
scholars, and yet perhaps few words have been more zealously
investigated[359]: if I add another to the number of attempts to solve
the riddle, it is only because I believe the force of the word will
become much more evident when we have settled its genuine derivation;
and that philology has yet a part to play in history which has not been
duly recognized. One of the oldest and most popular opinions was that
which connected the name with words denoting seniority; thus, with the
German adjective _grau_, Anglosaxon _grǽg_, grey. There was however
little resemblance between geréfa and grǽg, the Anglosaxon forms, and
the whole of this theory was applicable only to the Latino-Frankish form
graphio, or gravio. The frequent use of words denoting advanced age, as
titles of honour,—among which ealdor _princeps_, senior _seigneur_, ða
yldestan _primates_, and many others, will readily occur to the
reader,—favoured this opinion, which was long maintained: but especially
in Germany, it has been entirely exploded by Grimm in his
Rechtsalterthümer[360], and proof adduced that there cannot be the
slightest connection between _graf_ and _grau_.
-----
Footnote 358:
Cod. Dipl. No. 235. The Chronicle even calls Cæsar’s Tribune,
Labienus, geréfa.
Footnote 359:
The laws of Eádweard the Confessor show at how early a period the word
was unintelligible. “Greve autem nomen est potestatis; apud nos autem
nichil melius videtur esse quam praefectura. Est enim multiplex nomen;
greve enim dicitur de scira, de wæpentagiis, de hundredo, de burgis,
de villis: et videtur nobis compositum esse e grið anglice, quod est
_pax_ latine, et _ve_ latine, videlicet quod debet facere grið, i. e.
pacem, ex illis qui inferunt in terram ve, i. e. miseriam vel
dolorem.... Frisones et Flandrenses comites suos meregrave vocant,
quasi majores vel bonos pacificos; et sicut modo vocantur greves, qui
habent praefecturas super alios, ita tunc temporis vocabantur
eldereman, non propter senectutem, sed propter sapientiam.” Cap.
xxxii.
Footnote 360:
Page 753. Gloss. _in voc._ Grafio.
-----
More plausibility lay in the etymology of geréfa adopted by Spelman;
this rested upon the assumption that geréfa was equivalent to gereáfa,
and that it was derived from reáfan, to plunder; this view was
strengthened by the circumstance of the word being frequently translated
by _exactor_, the levying of fines and the like being a characteristic
part of a reeve’s duties. But this view is unquestionably erroneous: in
the first place geréfa could not have been universally substituted for
the more accurate ggereáfa, which last word never occurs, any more than
on the other hand does réfan for reáfan. Secondly, an Anglosaxon geréfa,
if for gereáfa, would necessarily imply a High-dutch garaupjo, a word
which we not only do not find, but which bears no sort of resemblance to
krávo and grávo which we do find[361]. Lambarde’s derivation of geréfa
from gereccan, _regere_, may be consigned to the same storehouse of
blunders as Lipsius’s _graf_ from γράφειν. Again, as words compounded
with _ge-_ and ending in _-a_, often denote a person who participates
with others in something expressed by the root, geréfa has been
explained to be one who shares in the roof, _i. e._ the kings roof: and
this has been supported by the fact that graf is equivalent to _comes_,
and that at an early period the comites are found occupying the places
of geréfan. But a fatal objection to this etymon lies in the omission of
the _h_ from geréfa, which would not have been the case had hróf really
been the root. Grimm says, “I will venture another supposition. In old
High-dutch rávo meant _tignum_, _tectum_ (Old Norse rǽfr, _tectum_),
perhaps also _domus_, _aula_; garávjo, girávjo, girávo, would thus mean
_comes_, _socius_, like gistallo, and gisaljo, gisello (Gram. ii.
736)[362].” There is however a serious objection to this hypothesis:
were it admitted, the Anglosaxon word must have been gerǽfa, not geréfa
for geróefa, that is, the vowel in the root must have been a long ǽ, not
a long é, springing out of and representing a long ó. I am naturally
very diffident of my own opinion in a case of so much obscurity, and
where many profound thinkers have failed of success; still it seems to
me that geréfa may possibly be referable to the word róf, _clamor_, róf,
_celeber_, _famosus_, and a verb rófan or réfan, _to call aloud_: if
this be so, the name would denote _bannitor_, the summoning or
proclaiming officer, him by whose summons or proclamation the court and
the levy of the freemen were called together; and this suggestion
answers more nearly than any other to the nature of the original office:
in this sense too, a reeve’s district is called his mánung,
_bannum_[363]. In this comprehensive generality lay the possibility of
so many different degrees of authority being designated by one term; so
that in the revolutions of society we have seen the German markgraf and
burggraf assuming the rank of sovereign princes, while the English
borough-reeve has remained the chief magistrate of a petty corporation,
or the pinder of a village has been designated by the title of a
hogreeve.
-----
Footnote 361:
Grimm seems to think the word was originally Frankish, and only
borrowed by the Alamanni, Saxons, and Scandinavians. Rechtsalt. p.
753. I am disposed to claim it for the Frisians and Saxons as well as
the Franks.
Footnote 362:
Rechtsalt. p. 753.
Footnote 363:
Æðelst. v. 8. § 2, 3, 4.
-----
Whatever were the original signification of the word, I cannot doubt
that it is of the highest antiquity, as well as the office which it
denotes. In all probability it was borne by those elected chiefs who
presided over the freemen of the Gá in their meetings, and delivered the
law to them in their districts[364]. Throughout the Germanic
constitutions, and especially in this country, the geréfa always appears
in connexion with judicial functions[365]: he is always the holder of a
court of justice: thus:—“Eádweard the king commandeth all the reeves;
that ye judge such just dooms, as ye know to be most righteous, and as
it in the doombook standeth. Fear not, on any account, to pronounce
folkright; and let every suit have a term, when it may be fullfilled,
that ye may then pronounce.” Again:—“I will that each reeve have a gemót
once in every four weeks; and so act that every man may have his right
by law; and every suit have an end and a term when it shall be brought
forward.”
-----
Footnote 364:
“Eliguntur in iisdem conciliis et principes, qui iura per pagos
vicosque reddunt.” Tac. Germ. xii. Some tribes may have called these
_principes_ by one name, some by another: ealdorman, ǽsaga, lahmon,
are all legitimate appellations for a geréfa.
Footnote 365:
Leg. Eádw. i. § 1. Thorpe, i. 158. Leg. Eádw. i. § 2. Thorpe, i. 160.
Leg. Eádw. i. §. 11. Thorpe, i. 164. See also Inst. Polity, § xi.
Thorpe, ii. 318.
-----
Upon this point it is unnecessary to multiply evidence, and I shall
content myself with saying that wherever there was a court there was a
reeve, and wherever there was a reeve, he held some sort of court for
the guidance and management of persons for whose peaceful demeanour he
was responsible. From this it is to be inferred that the geréfan were of
very different qualities, possessed very different degrees of power, and
had very different functions to perform, from the geréfa who gave law to
the shire, down to the geréfa who managed some private landowner’s
estate. It will be convenient to take the different classes of geréfan
_seriatim_, and collect under each head such information as we can now
obtain from our legal or historical monuments.
HEÁHGERÉFA.—In general the word coupled with geréfa enables us to judge
of the particular functions of the officer; but this is not the case
with the heáhgeréfa or _high reeve_, a name of very indefinite
signification, though not very rare occurrence. It is obvious that it
really denotes only a reeve of high rank, I believe always a royal
officer; but it is impossible to say whether the rank is personal or
official; whether there existed an office called the heáhgeréfscipe
(highreevedom) having certain duties; or whether the circumstance of the
shire- or other reeve being a nobleman in the king’s confidence gave to
him this exceptional title. I am inclined to believe that they are
exceptional, and perhaps in some degree similar to the Missi of the
Franks,—officers dispatched under occasional commissions to perform
functions of supervision, hold courts of appeal, and discharge other
duties, as the necessity of the case demanded; but that they are not
established officers found in all the districts of the kingdom, and
forming a settled part of the machinery of government. In this
particular sense, our judges going down upon their several circuits,
under a commission of jail delivery, are the heáhgeréfan of our day.
We are told in the Saxon Chronicle that in the year 778, Æðelbald and
Heardberht of Northumberland slew three heáhgeréfan, namely Ealhwulf the
son of Bosa, Cynewulf and Ecga: and the immediate consequence of this
appears to have been the expulsion of Æðelred, and the succession of
Ælfwold to the throne of Northumberland. These high-reeves were
therefore probably military officers of Æðelred, and Simeon of Durham,
in recording the events of the same year calls them dukes, _duces_.
Again, in 780, Simeon mentions Osbald and Æðelheard as dukes, but the
Chronicle calls them heáhgeréfan.[366]
-----
Footnote 366:
The instances cited are Northumbrian, and it is remarkable that the
chapter on Wergylds, § 4, reckons the heáhgeréfa as a separate rank,
having a high wergyld, but inferior to that of the ealdorman. I am
much inclined to think that these were sheriffs.
-----
In a preceding chapter I have shown that the _dux_ is properly
equivalent to the ealdorman, but this can hardly have been the case with
the heáhgeréfa. Again, in 1001, the Chronicle mentions three
high-reeves, Æðelweard, Leófwine and Kola, and apparently draws a
distinction by immediately naming Eádsige, the king’s reeve, not his
high-reeve. In 1002 the Chronicle again mentions Æfíc, a high-reeve, who
though a great favourite of the king, certainly never attained the rank
of a duke or ealdorman, or, as far as we know, ever performed any public
administrative functions. He was a minion of Æðelred’s, but not an
officer of the Anglosaxon state.
SCÍRGERÉFA OR SHERIFF.—The Scírgeréfa is, as his name denotes, the
person who stands at the head of the shire, _pagus_ or county: he is
also called Scírman or Scírigman[367]. He is properly speaking the
holder of the county-court, scírgemót or folcmót, and probably at first
was its elected chief. But as this geréfa was at first the people’s
officer, he seems to have shared the fate of the people, and to have
sunk in the scale as the royal authority gradually rose: during the
whole of our historical period we find him exercising only a concurrent
jurisdiction, shared in and controlled by the ealdorman on the one hand
and the bishop on the other. The latter interruption may very probably
have existed from the very earliest periods, and the heathen priest have
enjoyed the rights which the Christian prelate maintained: but the
intervention of the ealdorman appears to be consistent only with the
establishment of a central power, exercised in different districts by
means of resident superintendents, or occasional commissioners
especially charged with the defence of the royal interests. In the
Anglosaxon legislation even of the eighth century, the ealdorman is
certainly head of the shire[368]; but there is, as far as I know, no
evidence of his sitting in judgment in the folcmót without the sheriff,
while there is evidence that the sheriff sat without the ealdorman.
Usually the court was held under the presidency of the ealdorman and
bishop, and of the scírgeréfa, who from his later title of vicecomes,
vicedominus, was probably looked upon as the ealdorman’s deputy,—a
strange revolution of ideas. The shiremoot at Ægelnóðes stán in the days
of Cnut was attended by Æðelstán, bishop of Hereford, Ranig the
ealdorman, Eádwine his son, Leófwine and Ðurcytel the white, Tofig the
king’s _missus_ or messenger, and Bryning the scírgeréfa[369]. But in a
celebrated trial of title to land at Wouldham in Kent, where archbishop
Dunstán himself was a party concerned, the case seems to have been
disposed of by Wulfsige the shireman or sheriff alone[370]. The bishop
of Rochester, being in some sort a party to the suit, could probably not
take his place as a judge, and the ealdorman is not mentioned at all.
Again in an important trial of title to land at Snodland in Kent, there
is no mention whatever of the ealdorman: the king’s writ was sent to the
archbishop; and the sheriff Leófríc and the thanes of East and West Kent
met to try the cause at Canterbury[371]. It may then be concluded that
the presence of the sheriff was necessary in any case, while that of the
ealdorman might be dispensed with[372]. By the provisions of our later
kings it appears that the scírgemót or sheriff’s court for the county
was to be holden twice in the year, and before this were brought all the
most important causes, and such as exceeded the competence of the
hundred[373].
-----
Footnote 367:
Leg. Ini, § 8. Æðelst. v. c. 8. § 2, 3, 4. Æðelwine scírman. Cod.
Dipl. No. 761, but Æðelwine scírgeréfa. Ibid. No. 732. Wulfsige preóst
scírigman; and Wulfsige se scírigman. Ibid. No. 1288. Ufegeát
scíreman. Ibid. No. 972. Leófríc scíresman. Ibid. No. 929.
Footnote 368:
Leg. Ini, § 36.
Footnote 369:
Cod. Dipl. No. 755.
Footnote 370:
Ibid. No. 1288.
Footnote 371:
Ibid. No. 729.
Footnote 372:
The law of Æðelstán, i. § 12 (Thorpe, i. 206) assumes the presence of
the reeves in the folcmót as a matter of course; but this does not
particularise the shire-reeves, though these are probably included in
the general term. See also Æðelst. iv. § 1. Thorpe, i. 220.
Footnote 373:
Leg. Eádg. ii. 5. Cnut, ii. 18. Thorpe, i. 268, 386.
-----
But the judicial functions of the scírgeréfa were by no means all that
he had to attend to. It is clear that the execution of the law was also
committed to his hands. The provisions of the council of Greatanleah
conclude with these words:—“But if any of my reeves will not do this,
and care less about it than we have commanded, let him pay the fine for
disobeying me, and I will find another reeve who will do it[374];” where
reference is generally made to all the enactments of the council. And
the same king requires his bishops, ealdormen and reeves (the principal
shire-officer) to maintain the peace upon the basis laid down in the
Judicia civitatis Londoniae, that is to put in force the enactments
therein contained, on pain of fines and forfeiture[375]. In pursuance
also of this part of their duty, they were commanded to protect the
abbots on all secular occasions[376], and to see the church dues
regularly paid; viz. the tithes, churchshots, soulshots and plough
alms[377]. And Eádgár, Æðelred and Cnut arm them with the power to levy
for tithe and inflict a heavy forfeiture upon those who withhold
it[378]. It is also very clear from several passages in the Laws that
the sheriff might be called upon to witness bargains and sales, so as to
warrant them afterwards if necessary. Æðelstán enacts[379]:—“Let no man
exchange any property, without the witness of the reeve, or the
mass-priest, or the landlord, or the treasurer, or some other credible
man:” and though the scírgeréfa is not particularly mentioned here, it
is obvious that he is meant, for a subsequent law of Eádmund, following
this enactment of Æðelstán, directs that no one shall bargain or receive
strange cattle without the witness of the highest reeve (“summi
praepositi”), the priest, the treasurer or the port-reeve[380]. He was
further to exercise a supreme police in his county: it is declared by
Æðelred[381],—“If there be any man who is untrue to all the people, let
the king’s reeve go and bring him under surety, that he may be held to
justice, to them that accused him. But if he have no surety, let him be
slain, and laid in the foul,”—that is, I presume, not buried in
consecrated ground.
-----
Footnote 374:
Æðelst. i. § 26. So again Æðelst. iii. § 7; iv. § 1. Thorpe, i. 212,
219, 222.
Footnote 375:
Æðelst. v. § 11. Thorpe, i. 240.
Footnote 376:
“And the king enjoins the reeves in every place to protect the abbots
in all their worldly needs, as best ye may.” Æðelred, ix. § 32.
Thorpe, i. 346.
Footnote 377:
Æðelst. i. Introd. Thorpe, i. 194, 196.
Footnote 378:
Eádg. i. § 3. Æðelr. ix. § 8. Cnut, i. § 8. Thorpe, i. 262, 342, 366.
Footnote 379:
Æðelst. i. § 10. Thorpe, i. 204.
Footnote 380:
Eádm. iii. § 5. Thorpe i. 253. This law uses the word _ordalii_, which
I believe to be an error for _hordere_, as in Æðelstán’s law, and have
rendered it accordingly.
Footnote 381:
Leg. Æðelr. i § 4. Thorpe, i. 282.
-----
From this also it appears probable that the geréfa was the officer to
conduct the execution of criminals in capital cases, as he remains to
this day; but as far as I remember, there is no instance of this duty
recorded. The regulations respecting mints and coinage seem also to show
that this part of the public service was under the superintendence of
the scírgeréfa[382]. As the principal political officer, and chief of
the freemen in the shire, it was further his duty to promulgate the laws
enacted by the king and his witena gemót, and take a pledge from the
members of the county, to observe these: and it is to be concluded that
this was solemnly done in the county-court[383].
-----
Footnote 382:
Cnut, ii. § 8. Thorpe, i. 380.
Footnote 383:
Æðelst. v. § 10. Thorpe, i. 238.
-----
The scírgeréfa was also the principal fiscal officer in the county. It
was undoubtedly his duty to levy all fines that accrued to the king from
offenders, and to collect such taxes as the land paid for public
purposes. We have unhappily no _pipe-rolls_ of the Anglosaxon period,
which would have thrown the greatest light upon the social condition of
England; but we have a precept of Cnut, addressed to Æðelríc the sheriff
of Kent, and the other principal officers and thanes of the county,
commanding that archbishop Æðelnóð shall account only as far as he had
done before Æðelríc became sheriff, and ordering that in future no
sheriff shall demand more of him[384]. From this it appears that even
the lands of the archbishop himself were not exempt from the sheriff’s
authority in fiscal matters, although there can be little doubt that at
this period the prelate had a grant of sacu and sócn, or complete
immunity from the sheriff’s power in judicial questions. And we shall
have little difficulty in admitting that, if he possessed this authority
in the case of the archbishop, he exercised it in that of other less
distinguished landowners. It has been already shown that the king
possessed certain profitable rights in, and received contributions from,
the estates of folcland in private hands: these were exercised and
collected by the scírgeréfa. It is probable that the zeal of this
officer had sometimes overstepped the bounds of the law, and induced him
to burthen the free landowner for the benefit of the crown; for we find
Cnut enacting[385]: “This is the alleviation which it is my pleasure to
secure to all the people, of that which hath heretofore too much
oppressed them. First, I command all my reeves that they justly provide
for me on my own, and maintain me therewith; and that no man need give
them anything, as farm-aid, unless he choose. And if after this any one
demand a fine, let him be liable in his wergyld to the king.”
-----
Footnote 384:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1323. This writ is directed in the usual form, to the
archbishop, the bishop of Rochester, the abbot of St. Augustine’s, the
sheriff and the thanes of Kent.
Footnote 385:
Cnut. ii. § 70. Thorpe, i. 412. _Feorm_ is the king’s farm or support:
and _feormfultum_ a benevolence in aid of the same. It had become
compulsory in some cases, and this is what Cnut forbids.
-----
The law then goes on to regulate the king’s rights in case of intestacy,
the amount of heriot payable by different classes, the freedom of
succession in the wife and children, and the freedom of marriage both
for widow and maiden. And as all these laws, numbered respectively from
§ 70 to 75, appear to be dependent upon one another, and to form a
chapter of alleviations by themselves, I conclude that the sheriffs had
been guilty of exaction in confiscating the estates of intestates,
demanding extravagant heriots and reliefs, and imposing fines for
licence to marry,—extortions familiar enough under the Norman rule. It
was moreover the sheriff’s duty to seize into the king’s hands all lands
and chattels belonging to felons, which would, in the event of a
conviction become forfeit to the crown: of this we have instances. About
A.D. 900, one Helmstán was guilty of theft; Eanwulf Penhearding, who was
then sheriff, immediately seized all the property he had at Tisbury,
except the land which Helmstán could not forfeit, as it was only
Ordláf’s lǽn or _beneficium_[386]. At the close of the tenth century,
Æscwyn a widow had become implicated in the theft of some title-deeds by
her own son: judgment was given against her in one of the royal courts,
whereby all her property became forfeited to the king: Wulfstán the
sheriff of Kent accordingly seized Bromley and Fawkham, her manors[387].
There is of course every probability that the sheriff was charged with
certain disbursements, required by the public service, and that he
rendered a periodical account both of receipts and expenditure, to the
officers who then represented the royal exchequer; but upon this part of
the subject we are unhappily without any evidence.
-----
Footnote 386:
Cod. Dipl. No. 328.
Footnote 387:
Ibid. No. 1258.
-----
The sheriff was naturally the leader of the militia, posse comitatus, or
levy of the free men, who served under his banner, as the different
lords with their dependents served under the royal officers, the church
vassals under the bishop’s or abbot’s officer, and all together under
the chief command of the ealdorman or duke. It was his business to
summon them, and to command them in the field, during the period of
their service: and he thus formed the connecting link between the
military power of the king and the military power of the people, for
purposes both of offence and defence.
In the earliest periods, the office was doubtless elective, and possibly
even to the last the people may have enjoyed theoretically, at least, a
sort of concurrent choice. But I cannot hesitate for a moment in
asserting that under the consolidated monarchy, the scírgeréfa was
nominated by the king, with or without the acceptance of the
county-court, though this in all probability was never refused[388]. The
language of the laws which continually adopt the words, _our_ reeves,
where none but the sheriffs are intended, clearly shows in what relation
these officers stood to the king: and as the latter indisputably
possessed the power of removing, he probably did not want that of
appointing them[389]. On one occasion indeed Æðelstân distinctly
declares, that if his sheriffs neglect their duty, _he_, the king, will
find others to do it[390]. The means by which the dignity of the sheriff
was supported are similar to those noticed in the case of the ealdorman.
He received a proportion of the fines payable to the king: he was, we
may presume, always a considerable landowner in the shire; indeed,
several of those whom we know to have held the office, were amongst the
greatest landowners in their respective districts[391]. It is even
possible that there may have been some provision in land, attached to
the office, for I meet occasionally with such words as geréf-land,
geréf-mǽd, where the form of the composition denotes, not the land or
meadow of some particular sheriff, but of the sheriff generally. As
leader of the _shire-fyrd_ or armed force, the geréfa would have a share
of the booty; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that his influence
and good-will were secured at times by the voluntary offerings of
neighbours and dependents.
-----
Footnote 388:
In the Council of Baccanceld, Wihtred is made to say:—“It is the duty
of kings to appoint eorls and ealdormen, scírgeréfan and doomsmen.”
Chron. Sax. an. 694. “Illius autem est comites, duces, optimates,
principes, praefectos, iudices saeculares statuere.” Cod. Dipl. No.
996. The charter is an obvious forgery, but it shows the tendency of
opinion in the Anglosaxon times.
Footnote 389:
In some of the writs addressed to the shires, the place properly
filled by the scírgeréfa is given to noblemen of the king’s household,
as Eádnóð steallere in Hampshire. Cod. Dipl. No. 845. Esgár steallere
in Hertfordshire, Kent and Middlesex. Nos. 827, 843, 864. Rodbeard
steallere in Essex. No. 859. I believe these persons to have been
really the sheriffs, but to have been named by their familiar, and in
their own view, higher designations, as officers of the court.
Footnote 390:
Conc. Greatanl. Æðelst. 1. § 26.
Footnote 391:
Tofig Pruda, whom we recognize as scírgeréfa in Somersetshire, is
elsewhere described as “vir praepotens.” See Flor. Wig. an. 1042.
-----
The writs of the kings, touching judicial processes, and other matters
connected with the public service, were directed to the ealdorman,
bishop and sheriff of the district, as a general rule. From these writs,
which are numerous in the eleventh century, we learn some of the names
of the gentlemen who filled the office at that period: and as those
names are not without interest I have collected from such documents as
we possess a list of sheriffs for different counties.
Berks Cyneweard[392].
Gódric[393].
Devonshire Hugh the Norman[394].
Dorsetshire Ælfred[395].
Essex Leófcild[396].
Rodbeard steallere[397].
Hampshire Eádsige[398].
Eádnóð steallere[399].
Herefordshire Ælfnóð[400].
Bryning[401].
Osbearn[402].
Ulfcytel[403].
Hertfordshire Ælfstán[404].
Esgár steallere[405].
Huntingdonshire Ælfríc[406].
Cyneríc[407].
Kent Æðelríc[408].
Æðelwine[409].
Esgár steallere[410].
Leófríc[411].
Osweard[412].
Wulfsige preóst[413].
Wulfstán[414].
Lincolnshire Osgód[415].
Middlesex Ælfgeát[416].
Esgár steallere[417].
Ulf[418].
Norfolk Eádríc[419].
Norfolk and Suffolk Tolig[420].
Northampton Marleswegen[421].
Norðman[422].
Somersetshire Godwine[423].
Tofig[424].
Tauid or Touid[425].
Suffolk Ælfríc[426].
Tolig[427].
Warwickshire Uua[428].
Wiltshire Eánwulf Penhearding[429].
Worcestershire Leófríc[430].
-----
Footnote 392:
Cod. Dipl. No. 948.
Footnote 393:
Ibid. No. 840.
Footnote 394:
Flor. Wig. an. 1008.
Footnote 395:
Cod. Dipl. No. 871.
Footnote 396:
Ibid. Nos. 788, 869, 870.
Footnote 397:
Ibid. No. 859.
Footnote 398:
Ibid. No. 1337.
Footnote 399:
Ibid. No. 845.
Footnote 400:
Chron. Sax. 1056.
Footnote 401:
Cod. Dipl. No. 755.
Footnote 402:
Ibid. No. 833.
Footnote 403:
Ibid. No. 802.
Footnote 404:
Ibid. No. 945.
Footnote 405:
Ibid. No. 864.
Footnote 406:
Ibid. No. 903.
Footnote 407:
Ibid. No. 906.
Footnote 408:
Ibid. Nos. 1323, 1325.
Footnote 409:
Ibid. Nos. 731, 732.
Footnote 410:
Ibid. No. 827.
Footnote 411:
Ibid. No. 929.
Footnote 412:
Ibid. Nos. 847, 854.
Footnote 413:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1288. This is contrary to the provision of archbishop
Ecgberht’s Poenitential, iii. § 8: he says that a priest or deacon
ought not to be a geréfa, or a wícnere, or to have any concern with
secular business. “Nis nánum mæsse-preóste álýfed ne diacone, æt hí
geréfan beón né wícneras, né ymbe náne worldbysgunga ábysgode beón,
búton mid ðǽre ðe hig tó getitolode beóð.” Thorpe, ii. 198. Perhaps
however Ecgberht’s rule was construed to mean private, not public,
geréfan, when in process of time it might become useful to have the
assistance of priests learned in the law, as judges; especially as in
the tenth century the importance of missionary labours was less
strongly felt than in the eighth.
Footnote 414:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1258.
Footnote 415:
Ibid. No. 1319.
Footnote 416:
Ibid. No. 858.
Footnote 417:
Ibid. No. 855.
Footnote 418:
Ibid. No. 843.
Footnote 419:
Ibid. No. 785.
Footnote 420:
Ibid. Nos. 853, 875, 880, 881, 883, 908, 911.
Footnote 421:
Ibid. Nos. 806, 808.
Footnote 422:
Ibid. Nos. 863, 904.
Footnote 423:
Ibid. Nos. 834, 835, 836, 838.
Footnote 424:
Ibid. No. 821.
Footnote 425:
Ibid. Nos. 837, 839, 917, 926, 976.
Footnote 426:
Ibid. Nos. 832, 842.
Footnote 427:
Ibid. Nos. 874, 905.
Footnote 428:
Ibid. No. 493.
Footnote 429:
Ibid. No. 328.
Footnote 430:
Ibid. Nos. 757, 898, 923.
-----
It is possible that increased research may extend this list of sheriffs,
and much to be regretted that our information is so scanty as it is. We
have no means of deciding whether the office was an annual one, or how
its duration was limited. The Kentish list shows that the clergy were
neither exempt nor excluded from its toils or advantages: and the
position of Wulfsige the priest and sheriff recalls to us the earlier
times when priest and judge may have been synonymous terms among the
nations of the north[431]. I now proceed to a third class, the
-----
Footnote 431:
“Si iudex vel sacerdos reperti fuerint nequiter iudicasse,” etc. Leg.
Visigoth, ii. c. l. § 33.
-----
CYNINGES GERÉFA, or Royal Reeve.—There is some difficulty with regard to
this officer, because in many cases where the cyninges geréfa is
mentioned, it is plain that the scírgeréfa is meant. For example, Ælfred
twice mentions the cyninges geréfa as sitting in the folcmót and
administering justice there[432], which is hardly to be understood of
any but the sheriff. However it is consistent with the general
principles of Teutonic society that as there was a scírgeréfa to do
justice between freeman and freeman, so also there should be a cyninges
geréfa, before whom the king’s tenants should ultimately stand to right,
and who more particularly administered the king’s sacu and. sócn in his
own private lands. To this officer, under the ealdorman, would belong
the investigation of those causes which the king’s manorial courts could
not decide: perhaps he might possess some sort of appellate
jurisdiction: and it cannot be doubted that it was his duty to
superintend the management of the king’s private domains, and to lead
the array of the king’s private tenants in the general levy. It is
therefore not unlikely that this officer may be identical with the
heáhgeréfa already noticed. But in many cases where a king’s reeve is
mentioned, and where we cannot understand the term of the scírgeréfa, it
is clear that a wícgeréfa or burh- or túngeréfa are intended, and that
they are called royal officers merely because the wíc, burh or tún
happened to be royal property. The Chronicle under the year 787 mentions
a geréfa who was slain by the Northmen:—“This year king Beorhtríc took
to wife Eádburh, king Offa’s daughter: and in his time first came three
ships of Northmen from Hæretha land. And then the geréfa rode to the
place, and would have driven them to the king’s tún, for he knew not who
they were: and there on the spot they slew him. These were the first
Danish ships that ever sought the land of the English.”
-----
Footnote 432:
“Gif mon on folces gemóte cyninges geréfan ge-yppe eofot,” etc. § 22.
“And gebrengen beforan cyninges geréfan on folcgemóte ... gecýðe in
gemótes gewitnesse cyninges geréfan.” § 34. See also Æðelred, iii. §
13. Cnut, ii. § 8, 33. Thorpe, i. 76, 82, 380, 396. In Cod. Dipl. No.
789, appears a king’s reeve Wulfsige: but is not this the same
Wulfsige as we find sheriff of Kent at the same period?
-----
Now Florence of Worcester under the same date tells us that this officer
was “regis praepositus,” that is, a king’s reeve: and Henry of
Huntingdon improves him into a sheriff[433], “praepositus regis illius
provinciae:” Æðelweard however, who is obviously much better acquainted
with the details of the story than his Norman successors, records that
this officer’s name was Beadoheard, and that he was the royal burggrave
in Dorchester[434].
-----
Footnote 433:
Hen. Hunt. lib. iv.
Footnote 434:
Æðelw. lib. iii. “Exactor regis, iam morans in oppido, quod Dorceastre
nuncupatur.” Gaimar calls him a “un senescal al rei:” l. 2069.
-----
In 897 again we hear of the death of Lucemon, in battle against the
Danes: the Chronicle calls him “ðæs cyninges geréfa:” but Henry of
Huntingdon, “praepositus regalis exercitus[435],” which may merely mean
the officer appointed to lead the _royal_ force, that is a king’s reeve
in the sense which I have attempted to establish on a preceding page.
Other king’s reeves mentioned, are Ælfweard, (Chron. Sax. an. 1011), and
Ælfgár (Cod. Dipl. No. 693).
-----
Footnote 435:
Hen. Hunt. lib. v.
-----
It may admit of doubt whether in the parts of England which were subject
to Danish rule, and only re-annexed to the Westsaxon crown by conquest,
the same institutions prevailed as in the rest of the country. In the
laws of Æðelred[437] we hear of a king’s reeve in the Wapentake and in
the community of the Five Burgs. These are not sheriffs; the former
rather resembling the Hundred-man; the latter a Burhgeréfa, but with
extended powers, perhaps approaching those of a sheriff, or the
Northumbrian heáhgeréfa already alluded to in this chapter.
-----
Footnote 437:
Æðelr. iii. § 1, and iii. § 3. Thorpe, i. 292, 294.
-----
THE BURHGERÉFA.—In a fortified town, which I take to be the strict
meaning of _burh_, there was an officer under this title. We know but
little of his peculiar powers; but there is every reason to conclude
that they were similar to those of other geréfan, according to the
circumstances in which he was placed. If the town were free, it is
possible that he may have been the popular officer, a sort of sheriff
where the town is itself a county. But this is improbable, and it is
much more likely that the burhgeréfa was essentially a royal officer,
charged with the maintenance and defence of a fortress. Such a one I
take Badoheard to have been in Dorchester; similarly we hear of Godwine,
praepositus civitatis Oxnafordi[438], Æðelwig praepositus in
Bucingaham[439], and Wynsige also praepositus in Oxnaforda[439], Osulf
and Ylcærðon both praepositi in Padstow[440]; and finally Ælfred, the
reeve of Bath[441]. It was this officer’s duty to preside in the
burhgemót, which was appointed to be held thrice in the year[442], and
he was most likely the representative of the towns-people, so far as
these were unfree, in the higher courts. It is also probable that he was
their military leader, and that he was expected to be present at sales
and exchanges in order to be able to warrant transactions, if impeached.
Lastly he was to see that tithes were duly rendered from his
fellow-citizens[443]. From a very interesting document just now
cited[444], it may be inferred that he possessed considerable power in
his district, and that persons of rank and wealth were clothed with the
office. We there find the reeves of Buckingham and Oxford granting the
rites of Christian burial to some Saxon gentlemen who had perished in a
brawl brought on by an attempt at theft; and the intervention of the
king himself seems to have been necessary to prevent the execution of
their decree. The burhgeréfa may perhaps be said to have had some of the
rights of the Aedile and Praetor urbanus under the old, or those of the
duumvir under the later, provincial constitution of Rome. Still he seems
to have been in some degree subject to the supervision of the ealdorman.
I have sometimes thought that he might be compared in part with the
Burggraf, in part with the Vogt of the German towns under the Empire;
but unfortunately we know too little of our ancient municipal
constitution to enable us to carry out this enquiry. We have no means
now of ascertaining the duration of his office, the nature of his
appointment, or the actual extent of his powers.
-----
Footnote 438:
Cod. Dipl. No. 950.
Footnote 439:
Ibid. No. 1289.
Footnote 440:
Ibid. No. 981.
Footnote 441:
Chron. Sax. an. 906.
Footnote 442:
Leg. Eádg. ii. § 5.
Footnote 443:
Æðelst. i. § 1. Thorpe, i. 194.
Footnote 444:
See Note 439
-----
PORTGERÉFA.—The Portgeréfa is in many respects similar to the
Burhgeréfa: but as it appears that _Port_ is applied rather to a
commercial than a fortified town, there are differences between the two
offices. In some degree these will have depended upon the comparative
power, freedom and organization of the citizens themselves, and I can
readily believe that the portreeves of London were much more important
personages than the burhreeves of Oxford or Bath. In the smaller towns,
it is probable that the court of the portreeve was a sort of pie-powder
court; but in the larger, it must have had cognizance of offences
against the customs laws, the laws affecting the mint, and the general
police of the district. As a general rule I imagine the portgeréfa to
have been an elective officer: perhaps in the large and important towns
he required at least the assent of the king. In London he holds the
place of the sheriff, and the king’s writs are directed to the earl, the
bishop and the portreeve[445]. There are two cities in which we hear of
portreeves, viz. London and Canterbury: in the former we have
Swétman[446], Ælfsige[447], Ulf[448], Leófstán[449], and the great
officer of the royal household, Esgár the steallere[450], which alone
would be sufficient evidence of the importance attached to the post. In
Canterbury we read of Æðelred[451], Leofstán[452], and Gódric[453],
occupying the same station. Again we have Ælfsige portgeréfa in
Bodmin[454], and Leófcild portgeréfa in Bath[455]. It is worthy of
remark that the two, Ælfsige and Leófstán, served the office together in
London, and that Ulf also occurs as sheriff of Middlesex. In the smaller
towns especially it must have been a principal part of the portreeve’s
duty to witness all transactions by bargain and sale[456]. A portion of
his subsistence at least was probably derived from the proceeds of
tolls, and fines levied within his district.
-----
Footnote 445:
Cod. Dipl. vol. iv. _passim_. There is not the slightest reason to
suppose that there ever was a special ealdorman of London, as Palgrave
imagines. The city was governed by Portreeves, usually two at once,
until long after the Conquest, when it obtained mayors, like many
other towns.
Footnote 446:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 857, 861.
Footnote 447:
Cod. Dipl. No. 856.
Footnote 448:
Ibid. No. 872.
Footnote 449:
Ibid. Nos. 857, 861.
Footnote 450:
Ibid. No. 872.
Footnote 451:
Ibid. No. 929.
Footnote 452:
Ibid. No. 799.
Footnote 453:
Ibid. No. 789.
Footnote 454:
Ibid. No. 981.
Footnote 455:
Cod. Dipl. No. 933. This evidence that the officer in Bath was a
portreeve and not a burhreeve may suggest the possibility of those
persons whom I have cited under the former head, belonging rather to
the present one. The Latin _praepositus civitatis_ will denote either
one or the other office, and indeed it is difficult to prove any
difference between them by direct testimony.
Footnote 456:
Leg. Eádw. § 1. Thorpe, i. 158. Eádm. iii. § 5. Thorpe, i. 253.
Æðelst. i. § 12. Thorpe, i. 206.
-----
WÍCGERÉFA.—The Wícgeréfa was a similar officer, in villages, or in such
towns as had grown out of villages without losing the name of a village.
I presume that he was not concerned with the freemen, but was a kind of
steward of the manor, and that his dignity varied with the rank of his
employer and the extent of his jurisdiction. However there is so much
difficulty in making a clear distinction between Port and Wíc, that we
find wícgeréfa applied to officers who ruled in large and royal cities.
Thus the Saxon Chronicle mentions Beornwulf under the title of Wícgeréfa
in Winchester[457], whom Florence in the same year calls Praepositus
Wintoniensium. And in the laws of Hloðhere and Eádríc[458], the same
title is given to the king’s officer in London, Cyninges wícgeréfa. In
general I should be disposed to construe the word strictly as a
village-reeve, and especially in any case where the village was not
royal, but ducal or episcopal property. Many places may indeed have once
been called by the name of _Wíc_ which afterwards assumed a much more
dignified appellation, together with a much more important social
condition.
-----
Footnote 457:
Chron. Sax. an. 897.
Footnote 458:
§ 16. Thorpe, i. 34.
-----
TÚNGERÉFA.—The Túngeréfa is literally the reeve of a tún, enclosure,
farm, vill or manor: and his authority also must have fluctuated with
that of his lord. He is the _villicus_ or bailiff of the estate, and on
the royal farms was bound to superintend the cultivation, and keep the
peace among the cultivators. In London he appears to have been
subordinate to the portgeréfa, and was probably his officer[459]; it was
his business to see that the tolls were paid. Ælfred commands, in case a
man is committed to prison in the king’s tún, that the reeve shall feed
him, if necessary[460]. This I suppose to be the túngeréfa, the officer
on the spot who would be responsible for his security. So Eádgár forbids
his reeves to do any wrong to the other men of the tún, in respect to
the tracking of strange cattle[461]. Here the túngeréfa represents the
king, among the class that would in earlier times have formed a court of
free markmen. That the túngeréfa was the manager of a royal estate
appears plainly from an ordinance of Æðelstán, respecting the doles or
charities which were to issue from the various farms’ domain[462]. “I
Æðelstán, with the consent of Wulfhelm my archbishop, and all my other
bishops and God’s servants, command all you my reeves, within my realm,
for the forgiveness of my sins, that ye entirely feed one poor
Englishman, if ye have him, or that ye find another. From every two of
my farms, be there given him monthly one amber of meal, and one shank of
bacon, or a ram worth four pence, and clothing for twelve months every
year. And ye shall redeem one wíteþeów: and let all this be done for the
Lord’s mercy, and for my sake, under witness of the bishop in whose
diocese it may be. And if the reeve neglect this, let him make
compensation with thirty shillings, and let the money be distributed to
the poor in the tún where this remains unfulfilled, by witness of the
bishop.”
-----
Footnote 459:
Æðelr. iv. § 3.
Footnote 460:
Ælfr. § 1. Thorpe, i. 61.
Footnote 461:
Eádg. Supp. § 13. Thorpe, i. 276.
Footnote 462:
Æðelst. i. § 1. Thorpe, i. 196.
-----
Lastly, in the law of Æðelred[463] I find the Tungravius, decimates
homines, and presbyter charged with the care of seeing certain alms
bestowed and fasts observed; which seems to denote a special authority
exercised by the Túngeréfa together with the heads of the tithings. The
geréfa in a royal vill may easily have been a person of consideration:
if the Æðelnóð who in 830 was reeve at Eastry in Kent[464], were such a
one, we find from his will that he had no mean amount of property to
dispose of.
-----
Footnote 463:
Æðelr. viii. § 2. Thorpe, i. 338.
Footnote 464:
Cod. Dipl. No. 191.
-----
SWÁNGERÉFA.—The Swángeréfa, as his name denotes, was reeve of that
forest-court which till a late period was known in England as the
_swainmoot_. It was his business to superintend the swánas or swains,
the herdsmen and foresters, to watch over the rights of pasture, and
regulate the use which might be made of the forests. It is probably one
of the oldest constitutional offices, and may have existed by the same
name at a time when the organization in Marks was common all over
England. From a trial which took place in 825, we find that he had the
supervision of the pastures in the shirewood or public forest[465], and
from this also it appears that he was under the immediate
superintendence and control of the ealdorman. The extended organization
which the swána gemót attained under Cnut, may be seen in that prince’s
Constitutions de Foresta[466]. It is probable that there were
Holtgeréfan and Wudugeréfan, holtreeves and woodreeves among the Saxons,
having similar duties to those of the Swángeréfa, but I have not yet met
with these names. They are, I believe, by no means extinct in many parts
of England, any more than the Landreeve, a designation still current in
Devonshire, and probably elsewhere.
-----
Footnote 465:
Cod. Dipl. No. 219.
Footnote 466:
Thorpe, i. 426.
-----
WEALHGERÉFA.—The last officer whom I shall treat of particularly is the
Wealhgeréfa or Welsh-reeve. This singular title occurs in an entry of
the Saxon Chronicle, _anno_ 897. “The same year died Wulfríc, the king’s
horse-thane, who was also Wealhgeréfa.” There can be no dispute as to
the meaning of the word, but the functions of the officer designated by
it are far from clear. It denotes a reeve who had the superintendence of
the Welsh; but the question where this superintendence was exercised is
a very important one. If in the king’s palace, Wulfríc was set over a
certain number of unfree Britons, _laeti_ or even serfs, as their judge
and regulator: or he may have had the superintendence of property
belonging to Ælfred in Wales, which is somewhat less probable: or lastly
he may have been a margrave, whose mission it was to watch the Welsh
border, and defend the Saxon frontier against sudden incursions. This I
think the least probable of all, inasmuch as I find no traces of
margraves (mearcgeréfan) in Anglosaxon history. On the contrary the
marches in this country seem to have been always committed to the care
of a duke or ealdorman, not a geréfa. Wulfríc’s rank however, which was
that of a mariscalcus or marshal, is not inconsistent with so great and
distant a command. On the whole therefore I am disposed to believe that
he was a royal reeve to whose care Ælfred’s Welsh serfs were committed,
and who exercised a superintendence over them in some one or in all of
the royal domains.
The geréfa was not necessarily a royal officer: on the contrary we find
bishops, ealdormen, nay simple nobles with them upon their
establishment. Of course the moment an immunity of sacu and sócn existed
upon any estate, the lord appointed a geréfa to hold his court and do
right among his men, as the scírgeréfa held court for the freemen in the
shire. And if any proof of this were necessary, we might find it in the
title _socnereve_ (sócne geréfa) which occurs at page 12 of the valuable
book known as ‘Liber de antiquis Legibus,’ but which would have been
much more justly entitled Annals of the Corporation of London. We may be
assured that in every vill belonging to a bishop or a lay lord, in every
city where there was a cathedral or a castle, there was found a
bisceopes or an ealdormannes geréfa, as the case might be, performing
such functions for the prelate or the noble, as the king’s geréfa
exercised for him; and if there were an immunity, performing every
function that the royal officer performed. Thus in some towns I can
conceive it very possible that the king’s, ealdorman’s and bishop’s
reeves may have met side by side and exercised a concurrent
jurisdiction: and as the bishop’s geréfa must have led his armed
retainers, (at least whenever it pleased the prelate to remember the
canons of his church,) this officer may be compared to the Vogt,
Advocatus, Vice-dominus or Vidame, who fulfilled that duty on the
continent. The bishop’s reeve is empowered by the king to aid the
sheriff in the forcible levy of tithe[467]; he is recognised in the law
of Wihtrǽd as an intermediary between a dependent of the bishop and the
public courts of justice[468]; the thane’s or nobleman’s reeve was
allowed on various occasions to act as his attorney: the great landowner
was admonished to appoint reeves over his dependents, to preserve the
peace and represent them before the law; and lastly so necessary a part
of a nobleman’s establishment is the geréfa considered to be, that Ini
enacts[469], “whithersoever a noble journeys, thither may his reeve
accompany him.” Of course in many cases these geréfan would be merely
stewards[470], but in nearly all we must consider them to have been
judges in various courts of greater or less importance, public or
private as it might chance to be. This one original character
distinguishes all alike; whether it be the scírgeréfa of a county-court,
the burhgeréfa of a corporation, the swángeréfa of a woodland moot, the
mótgeréfa[471] of _any court_ in which plea could be holden, or the
túngeréfa of a vill or dependent settlement, the ancient steward of a
manorial court.
-----
Footnote 467:
Æðelr. i. § 1. Cnut, ii. § 30.
Footnote 468:
Wihtr. § 22. Thorpe, i. 43.
Footnote 469:
Ini. §63.
Footnote 470:
Cod. Dipl. No. 931.
Footnote 471:
“Swá ðæt nán scírgeréfa oððe mótgeréfa hæbbe ǽnige sócne oððe mót,
búton ðæs abbudes ágen hǽse ⁊ unne.” Cod. Dipl. No. 841. The law of
Eadweard which commands the reeve to hold his court once a month, and
which can only apply to the hundred, makes it probable that as the
scírgeréfa was in some places called scírman, so the hundred-man may
in some places have been called hundred-geréfa: I have already alluded
to the geréfa in the Wapentake; and the law of Eadweard the Confessor
(§ 31) shows that in the counties where there were Triðingas or
Ridings, there existed also a Triðing-geréfa.
-----
CHAPTER VI.
THE WITENA GEMÓT.
The conquest of the Roman provinces in Europe was accomplished by
successive bands of adventurers, ranged under the banners of various
leaders, whom ambition, restlessness or want of means had driven from
their homes. But the conquest once achieved, the strangers settled down
upon the territory they had won, and became the nucleus of nations: in
their new settlements they adopted the rules and forms of institutions
to which they had been accustomed in their ancient home, subject indeed
to such modifications as necessarily resulted from the mode of the
conquest, and their new position among vanquished populations, generally
superior to themselves in the arts of civilized life. If we carefully
examine the nature of these ventures, we shall I think come to the
conclusion that they were carried on upon what may be familiarly termed
the joint-stock principle. The owner of a ship, the supplier of the
weapons or food necessary to set the business on foot, is the great
capitalist of the company: the man of skill and judgment and experience
is listened to with respect and cheerfully obeyed: the strong arms and
unflinching courage of the multitude complete the work: and when the
prize is won, the profits are justly divided among the winners,
according to the value of each man’s contribution to the general
utility[472]. But in such voluntary associations as these, it is clear
that every man retains a certain amount of free will, that he has a
right to consult, discuss and advise, to assent to or dissent from the
measures proposed to be adopted: even the council of war of such a band
must differ very much from what in our day goes by that name; where a
few officers of high rank decide, and the mass of the army blindly
execute their plans. It cannot then surprise us that in such cases
everything should be done with the counsel, consent and leave of the
associated adventurers. The bands were then not too numerous for general
consultation: there was no fear lest treachery or weakness should betray
the plans to an enemy: the necessities of self-preservation guaranteed
the faith of every individual; for, camped among hostile and exasperated
populations, ignorant of their tongue, and remote from them in manners,
the German straggler, captive or deserter could look forward to nothing
save a violent death or a life of weary slavery. Mutual participation in
danger must have given rise to mutual trust.
-----
Footnote 472:
This is not hypothetical or imaginary. The settlements in Iceland were
positively made upon this principle, and by it the subsequent
divisions of the land were regulated.
-----
Again the principle upon which the settlement of the land was effected,
was that of associations for common benefits, and a mutual guarantee of
peaceful possession[473]. Each man stood engaged to his neighbour, both
as to what he would himself avoid, and as to what he would maintain. The
public weal was the immediate interest of every individual member of the
state; it came home to him at every instant of his life, directly,
pressing him either in his property, his freedom or his peace, not
through a long and accidental chain of distant causes and results.
Moreover in an association based upon the individual freedom of the
associates, each man had a right to guard the integrity of the compact
to which he was himself a party; and not only a right, but a strong
interest in exercising it, for in proportion to the smallness of the
state, is the effect which the conduct of any single member may produce
upon its welfare. But wherever free men meet on equal terms of alliance,
the will of the majority is the law of the state. If the minority be
small it must submit, or suffer for rebellion: if large, and capable of
independent action and subsistence, it may peaceably separate from the
majority, renounce its intimate alliance, and emigrate to new
settlements, where it may at its own leisure, and in its own way,
develop its peculiar views of polity, leaving to fortune or to the gods
to decide the abstract question of right between itself and its
opponents. How then is the will of the majority to be ascertained? Where
the number of citizens is small, the question is readily answered: by
the decision of a public meeting at which all may be present.
-----
Footnote 473:
The Acts, if we may so call them, of an Anglosaxon parliament, are a
series of _treaties of peace_, between all the associations which make
up the state; a continual revision and renewal of the alliances
offensive and defensive, of all the free men. They are universally
mutual contracts for the maintenance of the frið or peace. Those who
chose to do so, might withdraw from this contract, but they must take
the consequence. The witan had no money to vote, except in very rare
and extreme cases; consequently their business was confined to
regulating the terms on which the frið could be maintained.
-----
Now such public meetings or councils we find in existence among the
Germans from their very first appearance in history. The graphic pen of
Tacitus has left us a lively description of their nature and powers, and
in some degree their forms of business. He says[474],—“In matters of
minor import, the chiefs take counsel together; in weightier affairs,
the whole body of the state: but in such wise, that the chiefs have the
power of discussing and recommending even those measures, which the will
of the people ultimately decides. They meet, except some sudden and
fortuitous event occur, on fixed days, either at new or full moon....
This inconvenience arises from their liberty, that they do not assemble
at once, or at the time for which they are summoned, but a second or
even a third day is wasted by the delay of those who are to meet. They
sit down, in arms, just as it suits the convenience of the crowd.
Silence is enjoined by the priests, who, on these occasions, have even
the power of coercion. Then the king, or the prince, or any one, whom
his age, nobility, his honours won in war or his eloquence may authorise
to speak, is listened to, more through the influence of persuasion than
the power of command. If his opinion do not please them, they reject it
with murmurs: if it do, they dash their lances together. The most
honourable form of assent is adoption by clashing of arms. It is lawful
also to bring accusations, and prosecute capitally before the council.
The punishment varies with the crime. Traitors and deserters they hang
on trees; cowards, the unwarlike, and infamous of body they bury alive
in mud and marsh, with a hurdle cast over them: the difference of the
penalty has this intention as it were, that crimes should be made
public, but infamous vices hidden, while being punished.... In the same
councils also, princes are elected, to give law in the shires and
villages. Each has a hundred comrades from among the people, both to
advise him and add to his authority. They transact no business either of
a public or private nature, without their weapons. But it is not the
custom for any one to begin wearing them, before the state has approved
of him as likely to be an efficient citizen. Then, in the public meeting
itself, either one of the chiefs, or his father or a kinsman, decorates
the youth with a shield and javelin. This is their _Toga_; this is the
first dignity of their youth: before this they appear part of a
household,—after it, of a state.”
-----
Footnote 474:
Germ. xi. xii. xiii.
-----
Such then was the nature of a Teutonic parliament as Tacitus had learnt
that it existed in his time; nor is there the least doubt that he has
described it most truly. And such were all the popular meetings of later
periods, whether shiremoots, markmoots, or the great _placita_ of
kingdoms, folkmoots in the most extended sense of the term. Such, at
least in theory, and to a great extent in practice, were the meetings of
the Franks under the Merwingian kings, and even under the Carolings. It
will not be uninteresting or without advantage to compare with this
account the description which Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, gives of
the institution as recognised and organized by Charlemagne, a prince by
nature not over well disposed to popular freedom, and by circumstances
placed in a situation to be very dangerous to it[475].
-----
Footnote 475:
What follows is abstracted from Hincmar, Epistola de ordine Palatii,
as cited and commented upon by Dönniges, p. 74, etc.
-----
Charlemagne held Reichstage or Parliaments twice a year, in May and
again in the autumn, for the general arrangement of the public business.
The earlier of these was attended by the principal officers of state,
the ministers as we should call them, both lay and clerical, the
administrators of the public affairs in the provinces, and other persons
engaged in the business of government. These, who are comprehended under
the titles of Maiores, Seniores, Optimates, may possibly have had the
real conduct of the deliberations; but there is no doubt that the
freemen were also present, first because the general armed muster or
Hereban took place at the same time,—the well-known Campus Madius or
Champ de Mai,—and partly because we know that all new capitularies added
to the existing law were subjected to their approval[476]. We may
therefore conclude that they were still possessed of a share in the
business of legislation, although it may have only amounted to a right
of accepting or rejecting the propositions of others. The king had his
particular curia, court or council, the members of which were chosen
(“eligebantur”), though how or by whom we know not, from the laity and
the clergy: probably both the king and the people had their share in the
election. The Seniores, according to Hincmar, were called “propter
consilium ordinandum,” to lead the business; the Minores, “propter idem
consilium suscipiendum,” to accept the same; but also “interdum pariter
tractandum,” sometimes to take a part also in the discussions, “and to
confirm them, not indeed by any inherent power of their own, but by the
moral influence of their judgment and opinion.”
-----
Footnote 476:
“Ut populus interrogetur de capitulis quae in lege noviter addita
sunt. Et postquam omnes consenserint, subscriptiones suas in ipsis
capitulis faciant.” Pertz, iii. 115, § 19.
-----
The second great meeting comprised only the seniores and the king’s
immediate councillors[477]. It appears to have been concerned with
questions of revenue as well as general policy. But its main object was
to prepare the business and anticipate the necessities of the coming
year. It was a deliberative assembly[478] in which questions afterwards
to be submitted to the general meeting were discussed and agreed upon.
The members of this council were bound to secrecy. When the public
business had been concluded, they formed a court of justice and of
appeal, for the settlement of litigation in cases which transcended the
powers or skill of the ordinary tribunals[479].
-----
Footnote 477:
Hincmar, c. 30.
Footnote 478:
These persons were in the strictest sense of the word προβούλοι, and
their acts προβουλεύματα. No doubt their body comprised the principal
officers engaged in the administration of the State.
Footnote 479:
Hincmar, c. 33.
-----
The general councils were held, in fine weather, in the open air, or, if
occasion required, in houses devoted to the purpose. The ecclesiastics
and the magnates, for so we may call them, sat apart from the multitude;
but even they had separate chambers, in which the clergy could
deliberate upon matters purely ecclesiastical, the magnates upon matters
purely civil: but when the object of their enquiry was of a mixed
character, they were called together[480]. Before these chambers the
questions were brought which had been prepared at the preceding meeting,
or arose from altered circumstances: the opinion of the members was
taken upon them, and when agreed to they were presented to the king, who
agreed or disagreed in turn, as the case might be. While the new laws or
administrative regulations were under discussion, the king, unless
especially invited to be present at the deliberations, occupied himself
in mixing with the remaining multitude, receiving their presents,
welcoming their leaders, conversing with the new comers, sympathizing
with the old, congratulating the young, and in similar employments, both
in spirituals and temporals, says Hincmar[481]. When the prepared
business had been disposed of, the king propounded detailed
interrogatories to the chambers, respecting the state of the country in
the different districts, or what was known of the intentions and actions
of neighbouring countries; and these having been answered or reserved
for consideration, the assembly broke up. When any new chapters, hence
called Capitula, had been added to the ancient law or folkright, special
messengers (_missi_) were dispatched into the provinces to obtain the
assent and signatures of the free men, and the chapters thus ratified
became thenceforth the law of the land. Is it unreasonable to suppose
that the proposals of the princes were also presented to the assembled
freemen, the _reliqua multitudo_, in arms upon the spot, and that in the
old German fashion they carried them by acclamation?
-----
Footnote 480:
“Sed nec illud praetermittendum, quomodo, si tempus serenum erat,
extra, sin autem intra, diversa loca distincta erant; ubi et hi
abundanter segregati semotim, et caetera multitudo separatim residere
potuissent, prius tamen caeterae inferiores personae interesse minime
potuissent. Quae utraque seniorum susceptacula sic in duobus divisa
erant, ut primo omnes episcopi, abbates, vel huiusmodi
honorificentiores clerici, absque ulla laicorum commixtione
congregarentur; similiter comites vel huiusmodi principes sibimet
honorificabiliter a caetera multitudine primo mane segregarentur,
quousque tempus, sive praesente sive absente rege, occurrerent. Et
tunc praedicti Seniores more solito, clerici ad suam, laici vero ad
suam constitutam curiam, subselliis similiter honorificabiliter
praeparatis, convocarentur. Qui cum separati a caeteris essent, in
eorum manebat potestate, quando simul, vel quando separati residerent,
prout eos tractandae causae qualitas docebat, sive de spiritalibus,
sive de saecularibus, seu etiam commixtis. Similiter, si propter
aliquam vescendi [? noscendi] vel investigandi causam quemcunque
vocare voluissent, et [? an] re comperta discederet, in eorum
voluntate manebat.” Hincmar, c. 35.
Footnote 481:
“Interim vero, quo haec in regis absentia agebantur, ipse princeps
reliquae multitudini in suscipiendis muneribus, salutandis proceribus,
confabulando rarius visis, compatiendo senioribus, congaudendo
iunioribus, et caetera his similia tam in spiritalibus, quamque et in
saecularibus occupatus erat. Ita tamen, quotienscunque segregatorum
voluntas esset, ad eos veniret,” etc. Hincmar, c. 35.
-----
While the district whose members attend the folkmoot is still small,
there is no great inconvenience in this method of proceeding. In the
empire of Charlemagne attendance upon the Campus Madius, whether as
soldier or councillor must have been a heavy burthen. Nor can we
conceive it to have been otherwise here, as soon as counties became
consolidated into kingdoms, and kingdoms into an empire. In a country
overrun with forests, intersected with deep streams or extensive
marshes, and but ill provided with the means of internal communication,
suit and service even at the county-court must have been a hardship to
the cultivator; a duty performed not without danger, and often
vexatiously interfering with agricultural processes on which the hopes
of the year might depend. Much more keenly would this have been felt had
every freeman been called upon to attend beyond the limits of his own
shire, in places distant from, and totally unknown to him: how for
example would a cultivator from Essex have been likely to look upon a
journey into Gloucestershire[482] at the severe season of
Christmas[483], or the, to him, important farming period of Easter? What
moreover could he care for general laws affecting many districts beside
the one in which he lived, or for regulations applying to fractions of
society in which he had no interest? for the Saxon cultivator was not
then a politician; nor were general rules which embraced a whole kingdom
of the same moment to him, as those which might concern the little
locality in which his alod lay. Or what benefit could be expected from
his attendance at deliberations which concerned parts of the country
with whose mode of life and necessities he was totally unacquainted?
Lastly, what evil must not have resulted to the republic by the
withdrawal of whole populations from their usual places of employment,
and the congregating them in a distant and unknown locality? If we
consider these facts, we shall find little difficulty in imagining that
any scheme which relieved him from this burthen and threw it upon
stronger shoulders, would be a welcome one, and the foundation of a
representative system seems laid _à priori_, and in the nature of things
itself. To the rich and powerful neighbour whose absence from his farms
was immaterial, while his bailiffs remained on the spot to superintend
their cultivation; to the scírgeréfa, the ealdorman, the royal reeve, or
royal thane, familiar with the public business, and having influence and
interest with the king; to the bishop or abbot, distinguished for his
wisdom as well as his station; to any or all of these he would be ready
to commit the defence of his small, private interests, satisfied to be
virtually represented if he were not compelled to leave the business and
the enjoyments of his daily life[484].
Footnote 482:
Easter and Christmas were usual times for the meetings of the Witan,
and during the Mercian period, Cloveshoo was frequently the place
where they assembled. Doubts have been lavished, upon the situation of
this place, which I do not share. In 804 Æðelríc the son of Æðelmund
was impleaded respecting lands in Gloucestershire, and stood to right
at Cloveshoo. Now it is clear that trial to those lands could properly
be made only in the hundred or shire where they lay; and as the
brotherhood of Berkeley were claimants, and the whole business
appertained to _Westminster_, I am disposed to seek Cloveshoo
somewhere in the hundred of that name in the county of Gloucester, and
therefore not far from Deerhurst, Tewksbury and Bishop’s Cleeve; not
at all improbably in Tewksbury itself, which may have been called
Clofeshoas, before the erection of a noble abbey at a later period
gave it the name it now bears. Cod. Dipl. No. 186.
Footnote 483:
These were usual periods for holding the gemót. “Actum Wintoniae in
publica curia Natalis Christi, in die festivitatis sancti Sylvestri,”
etc. Cod. Dipl. No. 815. The old folcmót probably met three times in
the year at the unbidden Ðing or _placitum_: so did the followers of
the first Norman kings at least, and it is remarkable enough that the
barons at Oxford should have returned to this arrangement, 42 Hen.
III. anno 1258. “Fait a remembrer qe lez xxiiii ount ordeignez qe
trois parlementz seront par an, le primere az octaues de seint Michel,
le seconde lendimayn de le chaundelour, le tierce le primer iour de
Juyn ceste asauoir trois semayns deuant le seint Johan; et a ces troiz
parlementz vendront lez conseillours le roi eluz tut ne seyent il pas
mandez pur vere lestat du roialme, et pur treter les communes
busoignes du reaume et del roi ensement et autrefoitz ensembleront
quant mester sera par maundement le roi.” Prov. Oxon., Brit. Mus.,
Cotton MS., Tiberius B. iv. folio 213. According to the later custom
Parliaments were to be, at least, annual, and were frequently admitted
so to be by law, until the Tudor times. See 5 Ed. II. an. 1311. “Nous
ordenoms qe le Roy tiegne Parlement vne foiz par an ou deux fois se
mestre soit, et ceo en lieu convenable,” etc.: which ordinance of the
Lords was passed into an act of Parliament 4 Ed. III. cap. 14. Some
years later the Commons petitioned the same king, that for redress of
grievances and other important causes, “soit Parlement tenuz au meinz
chescun an en la seson que plerra au Roy.” Rot. Parl. 36 Ed. III. n.
25. To which the king answered that the ancient statute thereupon
should be held. This petition the Commons found it necessary to repeat
fourteen years later, “qe chescun an soit tenuz un Parlement,” etc.:
to which the answer was, “Endroit du Parlement chescun an, il y aent
estatuz et ordenances faitz les queux soient duement gardez et tenuz.”
Rot. Parl. 50 Ed. III. n. 186: and the same thing took place at the
accession of Richard the Second. Rot. Parl. 1 Ric. II. n. 95. 2 Ric.
II. n. 2. Triennial parliaments were, I believe, first agreed to by
Charles the First.
Footnote 484:
The establishment of the Scabini or Schöffen in the Frankish empire
was intended to relieve the freemen from the inconvenience of
attending gemóts, which the counts converted into an engine of
extortion and oppression.
-----
On the other hand, to whom could the king look with greater security,
than to the men whose sympathies were all those of the ruling caste;
many of whom were his own kinsmen by blood or marriage, more of whom
were his own officers; men, too, accustomed to business, and practically
acquainted with the wants of their several localities? Or how, when the
customs and condition of widely different social aggregations were to be
considered and reconciled, could he do better than advise with those who
were most able to point out and meet the difficulties of the task? Thus,
it appears to me, by a natural process did the folkmót or meeting of the
nation become converted into a witena gemót or meeting of councillors.
Nor let it be imagined by this that I mean the king’s councillors only:
by no means; they were the witan or councillors of the nation, members
of the great council or inquest, who sought what was for the general
good, certainly not men who accidentally formed part of what we in later
days call the king’s council, and who might have been more or less the
creatures of his will: they were leódwitan, þeódwitan, general, popular,
universal councillors: only when they chanced to be met for the purpose
of advising him could they bear the title of the cyninges þeahteras or
cyninges witan. Then no doubt the Leódwitan became ðæs cyninges witan
(_the_ king’s, not king’s, councillors) because without their assistance
he could not have enacted, nor without their assistance executed, his
laws. Let it be borne in mind throughout that the king was only the head
of an aristocracy which acted with him, and by whose support he reigned;
that this aristocracy again was only a higher order of the freemen, to
whose class it belonged, and with many of whose interests it was
identified; that the clergy, learned, active and powerful, were there to
mediate between the rulers and the ruled; and I think we shall conclude
that the system which I have faintly sketched was not incapable of
securing to a great degree the well-being of a state in such an early
stage of development as the Saxon Commonwealth. At what exact period the
change I have attempted to describe was effected, is neither very easy
to determine nor very material. It was probably very gradual, and very
partial; indeed it may never have been formally recognised, for here and
there we find evident traces of the people’s being present at, and
ratifying the decisions of the witan. Much more important is it to
consider certain details respecting the composition, powers and
functions of the witena gemót as we find it in periods of ascertained
history. The documents contained in the Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici
enable us to do this in some degree. In that collection there are
several grants which are distinctly stated to have been made in such
meetings of the witan, by and with their consent, and the signatures to
which may be assumed to be those of members present on the occasion.
Among these we find the king, frequently the æðelings or princes of the
blood, generally the archbishops and all or some of the bishops and
abbots; all or some of the dukes or ealdormen; sometimes priests and
deacons; and generally a large attendance of milites, ministri or
thanes, many of whom must unhesitatingly be asserted to be royal
officers, geréfan and the like, in the shires[485]. From one document it
is evident that the sheriffs of all the counties were present[486]: and
in a few cases we meet with names accompanied by no special designation.
Now it appears that a body so constituted would have been very competent
to advise for the general good; and I do not scruple to express my
opinion that under such a system the interests of the country were very
fairly represented; especially as there were then no parliamentary
struggles to make the duration of ministries dependent upon the counting
up of single votes; and contests for the representation of counties or
boroughs would have been as much without an object in those days, as
they are important in our own; above all, since there was then no
systematic voting of money for the public service.
-----
Footnote 485:
It has always been a question of deep interest in this country, what
persons were entitled to attend the Gemót: and in truth very important
constitutional doctrines depend upon the answer we give to it. The
very first and most essential condition of truth appears to me, that
we firmly close our eyes to everything derived from the custom of
Parliaments, under the Norman, the Angevine or the English kings: the
practice of a nation governed by the principles of Feudal law, is
totally irreconcileable with the old system of personal relations
which existed under the earlier Teutonic law. The next most important
thing is, that we use no words but such as the Saxons themselves used:
the moment we begin to talk of Tenants in capite, Vavassors, Vassals,
and so forth, we introduce terms which may involve a _petitio
principii_, and must lead to associations of ideas tending to an
erroneous conclusion. One of these fallacies appears to me to lie in
the assertion that a landed qualification was required for a member of
the Witena gemót. One of the most brilliant, if not the most accurate,
commentators on our constitutional history, Sir F. Palgrave, has
raised this question. According to his view no one could be a member
of that singular body which he supposes the Anglosaxon Parliament to
have been, unless he had forty híds of land, four thousand acres at
least according to the popular doctrine. But this whole supposition
rests upon a series of fine-drawn conclusions, in my opinion, without
sound foundation, and totally inconsistent with every feeling and
habit of Saxon society. The monkish writer of the history of Ely—a
very late and generally ill-informed authority—says that a lady would
not marry some suitor of hers, because not having forty híds he could
not be counted among the Proceres; and this is the whole basis of this
parliamentary theory,—_proceres_ being assumed, without the slightest
reason, to mean members of the witena gemót,—and the witena gemót to
be some royal council, some Curia Regis, and not at all the kind of
body described in this chapter. I confess I cannot realize to myself
the notion of an Anglosaxon woman nourishing the ambition of seeing
her husband a member of Parliament. The passage no doubt implies that
a certain amount of land was necessary to entitle a man to be classed
in a certain high rank in society: and this becomes probable enough as
we find a landed qualification partially insisted on with regard to
the ceorl who aspired to be ranked as a thane. But this is a negative
condition altogether: it is intended to repress the pretensions of
those who, in spite of their ceorlish birth, assumed the weapons and
would, if possible, have assumed the rights of thanes. In the Saxon
custumal, called “Ranks,” it is said:—“And if a thane throve so that
he became an eorl, he was thenceforth worthy of eorl-right.” Thorpe,
i. 192. On this the learned editor of the Ancient Laws and Institutes
observes:—“It is to this law that the historian of Ely seems to allude
in the following passage, and not to any qualification for a seat in
the witena gemót, as has been so frequently asserted. ‘Habuit (sc.
Wulfricus abbas) enim fratrem Gudmundum vocabulo, cui filiam
praepotentis viri in matrimonium coniungi paraverat, sed quoniam ille
quadraginta hidarum terrae dominium minime obtineret, licet nobilis
esset [that is, a thane] inter proceres tunc nominari non potuit, eum
puella repudiavit.’ Gale, ii. c. 40. If we refer to the Dooms of Cnut,
c. 69, we shall see that the heriots of an eorl and of a lesser thane
were in the proportion of from one to eight,—a rule which may have
been supposed to have arisen from a somewhat similar relation between
the quantities of their respective estates; and as the possession of
five hides conferred upon a ceorl the rights of a thane, the
possession of forty (5 × 8) in all probability raised a thane to the
dignity of an eorl.” This opinion is only a confirmation of that which
I had myself formed on similar grounds long before Mr. Thorpe’s work
was published: and it was apparently so understood by Phillips before
either of us wrote. See Angels. Recht. p. 114, note 317, Göttingen,
1825.
Footnote 486:
Leg. Æðelst. v. § 10.
-----
Among the charters from which we derive our information as to the
constituent members of the gemót, one or two appear to be signed by the
queen and other ladies, always I believe, ecclesiastics of rank and
wealth. I do not however, on this account, argue that such women formed
parts of the regular body. In many cases it is clear that when a grant
had been made by the king and his witan, the document was drawn up, and
offered for attestation to the principal persons present or easily
accessible. When the queen had accompanied her consort to the place
where the gemót was held, or when, as was usual, the gemót attended the
king at one of his own residences to assist in the hospitalities of
Christmas and Easter, it was natural that the first lady of the land
should be asked to witness grants of land, and other favours conferred
upon individuals: it was a compliment to herself, not less than to him
whom she honoured with her signature. But I know no instance where the
record of any solemn public business is so corroborated; nor does it
follow that the document which was drawn up in accordance with the
resolution of a gemót should necessarily be signed in the gemót itself.
It may have been executed subsequently at the king’s festal board, and
in presence of the members of his court and household. The case of
abbesses, if not disposed of by the arguments just advanced, must be
understood of gemóts in which the interests of the monastic bodies were
concerned. Here it is possible that ladies of high rank at the head of
nunneries may have attended to watch the proceedings of the synod and
attest its acts. Again, where the gemót acted as a high court of
justice, which often was the case, a lady who had been party to a cause
might naturally be called upon to sign the record of the judgment. The
instances however in which the signatures of women occur are very rare.
Although the members of the gemót are called in Saxon generally by the
name of _witan_[487], they are decorated with very various titles in the
Latin documents. Among these the most common are Maiores natu,
Sapientes, Principes, Senatores, Primates, Optimates, Magnates, and in
three or four charters they are designated Procuratores patriae[488],
which last title however seems confined to the thanes, geréfan or other
members below the rank of an ealdorman. In the prologue to the laws of
Wihtrǽd they are called ða eádigan, for which I know no better
translation than the Spanish _Ricos hombres_, where the wealth of the
parties is certainly not the leading idea. But whatever be their titles
they are unquestionably looked upon as representing the whole body of
the people, and consequently the national will: and indeed in one
charter of Æðelstán, an. 931, the act is said to have been confirmed
“tota plebis generalitate ovante,” with the approbation of all the
people[489]; and the act of a similar meeting at Winchester in 934,
which was attended by the king, four Welsh princes, two archbishops,
seventeen bishops, four abbots, twelve dukes, and fifty-two thanes,
making a total of ninety-two persons, is described to have been executed
“tota populi generalitate[490].” On one occasion a gemót is mentioned of
which the members are called the king’s heáhwitan, or high
councillors[491]: it is impossible to say whether this is intended to
mark a difference in their rank. If it were, it might be referred to the
analogy of the autumnal meetings in Charlemagne’s constitution, but
nothing has yet been met with to confirm this hypothesis, which, in
itself, is not very probable.
-----
Footnote 487:
I write _wita_ not _wíta_. The vowel is short, and the noun is formed
either upon the plural participle of _wítan_ to know, or upon a noun
_wit_, _intellectus_, previously so formed. The quantity of the vowel
is ascertained by the not uncommon spelling weota, where eo = ĭ (see
Cod. Dipl. No. 1073), and the occurrence in composition of the form
_uta_, which is consonant to the analogy of wudu, wuduwe, wuce for
wĭdu, wĭduwe, wĭce, but excludes the possibility of a long í.
Footnote 488:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 361, 1102, 1105, 1107, 1108.
Footnote 489:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1103.
Footnote 490:
Cod. Dipl. No. 364.
Footnote 491:
Chron. Sax. an. 1009.
-----
The largest amount of signatures which I have yet observed is 106, but
numbers varying from 90 to 100 are not uncommon, especially after the
consolidation of the monarchy[492]. In earlier times, and smaller
kingdoms, the numbers must have been much less: the gemót which decided
upon the reception of Christianity in Northumberland was held in a
room[493], and Dunstan met the witan of England in the upper floor of a
house at Calne[494]. Other meetings, which were rather in the nature of
conventions, and were held in the presence of armies, may have been much
more numerous and tumultuary,—much more like the ancient armed folkmoot
or the famous day which put an end to the Merwingian dynasty among the
Franks[495].
-----
Footnote 492:
See Cod. Dipl. Nos. 353, 364, 1107. There is one document signed by
121 persons (Cod. Dipl. Nos. 219, 220), but I have some doubt whether
all the signitaries were members of the gemót.
Footnote 493:
Beda, H. E. ii. 13.
Footnote 494:
Chron. Sax. an. 978.
Footnote 495:
Such perhaps was the gemót which after Eádmund írensída’s death
elected Cnut sole king of England, or that in which Earl Godwine and
his family were outlawed.
-----
That the members of the witena gemót were not elected, in any sense
which we now attach to the word, I hold to be indisputable: elective
witan ceased together with elective scírgeréfan or ealdormen[496]. But
in a system so elastic as the Saxon, it is conceivable that an
ealdorman, bishop or other great wita may have occasionally carried with
him to the gemót some friend or dependent whose wisdom he thought might
aid in the discussions, or whom the opinion of the neighbourhood
designated as a person well calculated to advise for the general good,—a
slight trace, but still a trace, of the ancient popular right to be
present at the settlement of public business. To this I attribute the
frequent appearance of priests and deacons, who probably attended in the
suite of prelates, and would be useful assessors when clerical business
was brought before the council. Generally, I imagine, the witan after
having once been called by writ or summons, met like our own peers, as a
matter of course, whenever a parliament was proclaimed; and that they
were summoned by the king, either _pro hac vice_, or generally, can be
clearly shown. Æðelstán, speaking of the gemóts at Greatanleá, Exeter,
Feversham and Thundersfield, says that the consultations were made,
before the archbishop, the bishops, and the witan present, _whom the
king himself had named_: “Swá Æðelstán cyng hit gerǽed hæfð, ⁊ his
witan, ǽrest æt Greátanleá, ⁊ eft æt Exanceastre, ⁊ syððám æt Fæfreshám,
⁊ feorðan síðe æt Ðunresfelda, beforan ðám arcebiscope, ⁊ eallum ðám
bisceopan, ⁊ his witum, ðe se cyng silf namode, ðe ðǽron wǽron[497].”
How these appointments took place is not very material, but as the witan
were collected from various parts of England, it is not unreasonable to
suppose that it was by the easy means of a writ and token, _gewrit and
insigel_. The meeting was proclaimed some time in advance, at some one
of the royal residences[498].
-----
Footnote 496:
This is not altogether devoid of strangeness, because we know that
among the Oldsaxons of the continent there was a regulated system of
elective representatives, including even those of the servile class.
Hucbald, in his life of Lebuuini, tells us: “In Saxonum gente priscis
temporibus neque summi coelestisque regis inerat notitia, ut digna
cultui eius exhiberetur reverentia, neque terreni alicuius regis
dignitas et honorificentia, cuius regeretur providentia, corrigeretur
censura, defenderetur industria: sed erat gens ipsa, sicuti nunc usque
consistit, ordine tripartito divisa. Sunt denique ibi, qui illorum
lingua _edilingi_, sunt qui _frilingi_, sunt qui _lassi_ dicuntur,
quod in latina sonat lingua, nobiles, ingenuiles atque serviles. Pro
suo vero libitu, consilio quoque, ut videbatur, prudenti, singulis
pagis principes praeerant singuli. Statuto quoque tempore anni semel
ex singulis pagis, atque ab eisdem ordinibus tripartitis, singillatim
viri duodecim electi, et in unum collecti, in media Saxonia secus
flumen Wiseram et locum Marklo nuncupatum, exercebant generale
concilium, tractantes, sancientes et propalantes communis commoda
utilitatis, iuxta placitum a se statutae legis. Sed etsi forte belli
terreret exitium, si pacis arrideret gaudium, consulebant ad haec quid
sibi foret agendum.” Pertz, Monum. ii. 361, 362.
Footnote 497:
Æðelst. v. § 10. Thorpe, i. 240.
Footnote 498:
“Ðonne beád mon ealle witan tó cynge, and man sceólde ðonne rǽdan, hú
man ðisne eard werian sceólde.” Chron. an. 1010. _Beódan_ is to
_proclaim_.
See also Chron. Sax. 1048. Hist. Eliens. 1, 10, etc.
-----
The proper Saxon name for these assemblies was witena gemót[499],
literally the meeting of the witan; but we also find, micel gemót, the
great meeting; sinoðlíc gemót, the synodal meeting; seonoð, the synod.
The Latin names are concilium, conventus, synodus, synodale
conciliabulum, and the like. Although synodus and seonoð might more
properly be confined to ecclesiastical conventions, the Saxons do not
appear to have made any distinction; probably because ecclesiastical and
secular regulations were made by the same body, and at the same time.
But it is very probable that the Frankish system of separate houses for
the clergy and laity prevailed here also, and that merely ecclesiastical
affairs were decided by the king and clergy alone. There are some acts
in which the signatures are those of clergymen only, others in which the
clerical signatures are followed and, as it were, confirmed by those of
the laity; and in one remarkable case of this kind, the king signs at
the head of each list, as if he had in fact affixed his mark
successively in the two houses, as president of each[500].
Footnote 499:
“And se cyng hæfde ðǽr on morgen witena gemót, ⁊ cwæð hine útlage.”
Chron. Sax. an. 1052. “And wæs ðá witena gemót.” Ib. an. 1052. “Ða
hæfde Eádwerd cyning witena gemót on Lundene.” Ib. an. 1050.
Footnote 500:
Cod. Dipl. No. 116. It is probable that even in strictly
ecclesiastical synods, the king had a presidency at least, as head of
the church in his dominions. In Willibald’s life of Boniface we are
told:—“Regnante Ini, Westsaxonum rege, subitanea quaedam incubuerat,
nova quadam seditione exorta, necessitas, et statim synodale a
primatibus aecclesiarum cum consilio praedicti regis servorum Dei
factum est concilium; moxque omnibus in unum convenientibus,
saluberrima de hac recenti dissentione consilii quaestio inter
sacerdotales aecclesiastici ordinis gradus sapienter exoritur, et
prudentiori inito consultu, fideles in Domino legatos ad
archiepiscopum Cantuariae civitatis, nomine Berchtwaldum, destinandos
deputarunt, ne eorum praesumptione aut temeritati adscriberetur, si
quid sine tanti pontificis agerent consilio. Cumque omnis senatus et
universus clericorum ordo, tam providenti peracta conlatione,
consentirent, confestim rex cunctos Christi famulos adlocutus est, ut
cui huius praefatae legationis nuntium inponerent, sciscitarent,” etc.
Pertz, ii. 338.
A more important question for us is, what were the powers of the witena
gemót? It must be answered by examples in detail.
1. _First, and in general, they possessed a consultative voice, and
right to consider every public act, which could be authorised by the
king._ This has been attempted to be denied, but without sufficient
reason. Runde, who is one of the upholders of the erroneous doctrine on
this subject, appeals to the introduction of Christianity into Kent,
which he perhaps justly declares to have been made without the assent of
the witan[501]. But it does not at all follow that the first reception
of Augustine by Æðelberht is to be considered a public act, or that it
had any immediate consequences for the public law. Nor is it certain
that at a later period, a meeting of the witan may not have ratified the
private proceeding of the king. Æðelberht, who had some experience of
Christianity from the doctrine and practice of his Frankish consort
Beorhte, may have chosen to trust to the silent, gradual working of the
missionaries, without courting the opposition of a heathen witena gemót,
till assured of success: his court were already accustomed to the sight
of a Christian bishop and clergy in Beorhte’s suite, and Augustine with
his company might easily pass for a mere addition to that department of
the royal household. Indeed Augustine himself does not appear to have
been at all ambitious of martyrdom, and probably preferred trying the
chances of a gradual progress to a stormy and perhaps fatal collision
with a body of barbarians, led by a pagan and rival priesthood. The
words of Beda therefore can prove nothing in the matter, except indeed
what is most important for us, viz. that Æðelberht at first refused to
interfere as king, that is, would not make a public question of
Augustine’s mission[502]. But Runde seems to have forgotten that
Æðelberht’s laws, which must be dated between 596 and 605, do most
emphatically recognise Christianity and the Christian priesthood; and as
Beda declares him to have enacted these laws “cum consilio
sapientum[503],” we shall hardly be saying too much if we affirm that
the introduction of Christianity was at least ratified by a solemn act
of the witan. Runde’s further remarks upon the conversion of
Northumberland seem to prove that he really never read through the
passages he himself cites, so completely do they refute his own
arguments[504].
-----
Footnote 501:
Runde, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Reichsstandschaft der Bischöfe und
Aebte. Gött. 1775, p. 35, etc.
Footnote 502:
Hist. Eccl. i. 26.
Footnote 503:
Ibid. ii. 5.
Footnote 504:
See Phillips, Geschichte des Angelsächsischen Rechts. Gött. 1825, p.
71.
-----
2. _The witan deliberated upon the making of new laws which were to be
added to the existing folcriht[505], and which were then promulgated by
their own and the king’s authority[506]._ Beda, in a passage just cited,
says of Æðelberht:—“Amongst other benefits which consulting, he bestowed
upon his nation, he gave her also, with the advice of his witan, decrees
of judgments, after the example of the Romans: which, written in the
English tongue, are yet possessed and observed by her[507].” And these
laws were enacted by their authority, jointly with the king’s. The
Prologue to the law of Wihtrǽd declares:—“These are the dooms of
Wihtrǽd, king of the men of Kent. In the reign of the most clement king
of the men of Kent, Wihtrǽd, in the fifth year of his reign, the ninth
indiction[508]. the sixth day of the month Rugern, in the place which is
called Berghamstead[509], where was assembled a deliberative convention
of the great men[510]; there was Brihtwald the high-bishop[511] of
Britain, and the aforenamed king; also the bishop of Rochester; the same
was called Gybmund, he was present; and every degree of the church in
that tribe, spake in unison with the obedient people[512]. There the
great men decreed, with the suffrages of all, these dooms, and added
them to the lawful customs of the men of Kent, as hereafter is said and
declared[513].”
Footnote 505:
Hloðhære and Eádríc, kings of the men of Kent, _augmented_ the laws
which their forefathers had made before them, by these dooms. Prol. to
Leg. Hloð. et Ead. Thorpe, i. 26. See also the Prologue to Wihtrǽd’s
laws in the text.
Footnote 506:
This is the case throughout the Teutonic legislation, where there is a
king at all. “Theodoricus rex Francorum, cum esset Cathalaunis, elegit
viros sapientes, qui in regno suo legibus antiquis eruditi erant: ipso
autem dictante, iussit conscribere legem Francorum, Alemannorum et
Baiuvariorum,” etc. Eichhorn, i. 273. “Incipit Lex Alamannorum, quae
temporibus Hlodharii regis (an. 613-628) una cum principibus suis, id
sunt xxxiii episcopis, et xxxiv ducibus, et lxii comitibus, vel
caetero populo constituta est.” Eichhorn, i. 274, note a. “In Christi
nomine, incipit Lex Alamannorum, qui temporibus Lanfrido filio
Godofrido renovata est. Convenit enim maioribus natu populo
allamannorum una cum duci eorum lanfrido vel citerorum populo adunato
ut si quilibet,” etc. About beginning of eighth century. Eichhorn. i.
274, note c. The Breviarium of Alaric the Visigoth (an. 506) was
compiled by Roman jurists, but submitted to an assembly of prelates
and noble laymen. In the authoritative rescript which accompanies this
work, it is said the object was, “Ut omnis legum Romanarum, et antiqui
iuris obscuritas, adhibitis sacerdotibus ac nobilibus viris, in lucem
intelligentiae melioris deducta resplendeat.... Quibus omnibus
enucleatis atque in unum librum prudentium electione collectis, haec
quae excerpta sunt, vel clariori interpretatione composita,
venerabilium Episcoporum, vel electorum provincialium nostrorum
roboravit adsensus.” Eichhorn, i. 280, note bb. Gundobald the
Burgundian, whose laws must have been promulgated before 515, says
that he was aided by the advice of his optimates. Again he says,
“Primum habito consilio comitum, procerumque nostrorum,” etc.
Eichhorn, i. 265, note c.
Footnote 507:
Hist. Eccl. ii. 5. He cites a passage which identifies these dooms
with those which yet go under Æðelberht’s name.
Footnote 508:
A.D. 696. The month is unknown, but probably in autumn.
Footnote 509:
Now Berstead, near Maidstone, in Kent, certainly not Berkhampstead in
Hertfordshire, as Clutterbuck affirms in his history of that county.
Footnote 510:
“Eádigra geþeahtendlíc ymcyme.” See Thorpe, i. 36, note c.
Footnote 511:
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Footnote 512:
The people subject to their charge. Were the people, that is, the
freemen, present at this gemót in their divisions as parishes or
ecclesiastical districts?
Footnote 513:
Thorpe, i. 36.
-----
The prologue to the laws of Ini establishes the same fact for Wessex; he
says,—“Ini, by the grace of God, king of the Westsaxons, with the advice
and by the teaching of Cénred, my father, and of Hedde my bishop, and
Ercenwold my bishop, with all my ealdormen, and the most eminent witan
of my people, and also with a great assemblage of God’s servants[514],
have been considering respecting our soul’s heal, and the stability of
our realm; so that right law, and right royal judgments might be settled
and confirmed among our people; so that none of our ealdormen, nor of
those who are subject unto us, should ever hereafter turn aside these
our dooms[515].”
-----
Footnote 514:
The clergy especially.
Footnote 515:
Thorpe, i. 102.
-----
And this is confirmed in more detail by Ælfred. This prince, after
giving some extracts from the Levitical legislation, and deducing their
authority through the Apostolical teaching, proceeds to engraft upon the
latter the peculiar principle of bót or compensation which is the
characteristic of Teutonic legislation[516]. He says,—“After this it
happened that many nations received the faith of Christ; and then were
many synods assembled throughout all the earth, and among the English
race also, after they had received the faith of Christ, of holy bishops,
and also of their exalted witan. They then ordained, out of that mercy
which Christ had taught, that secular lords, _with their leave_, might
without sin take for almost every misdeed—for the first offence—the bót
in money which they then ordained; except in cases of treason against a
lord, to which they dared not to assign any mercy; because Almighty God
adjudged none to them that despised him, nor did Christ, the son of God,
adjudge any to him that sold him unto death: and he commanded that a
lord should be loved like oneself[517]. They then, in many synods,
decreed a bót for many human misdeeds; and in many synod-books they
wrote, here one doom, there another.
-----
Footnote 516:
Ælfred makes a marked exception in the case of treason, and repeats it
in strong terms in § 4 of his laws, “be hláford syrwe.” These despotic
tendencies of a great prince, nurtured probably by his exaggerated
love for foreign literature, may account to us for the state of utter
destitution in which his people at one time left him. His strong
personality, and active character, coupled with the almost miraculous,
at any rate most improbable, event, of his ascending the throne of
Wessex, may have betrayed him in his youth into steps which his
countrymen looked upon as dangerous to their liberties. Nothing can
show Ælfred’s antinational and un-Teutonic feeling more than his
attributing the system of bóts or compensations to the influence of
Christianity.
Footnote 517:
This is Mr. Thorpe’s version, i. 59. But the words may be as strictly
construed, “should be loved like _himself_,” viz. God.
-----
“Then I, Ælfred the king, gathered these together, and commanded many of
those which our forefathers held, and which seemed good to me, to be
written down; and many which did not seem good to me, I rejected by the
counsel of my witan, and commanded them in other wise to be holden; but
much of my own I did not venture to set down in writing, for I knew not
how much of it might please our successors. But what I met with, either
of the time of Ini my kinsman, or of Offa, king of the Mercians, or
Æðelberht who first of the English race received baptism, the best I
have here collected, and the rest rejected. I then, Ælfred king of the
Westsaxons, showed these to all my witan, and they then said, that it
liked them well so to hold them.”
The laws of Eádweard like those of Hloðhere and Eádríc have no proem:
next in order of time are those of Æðelstán. The council of Greatley
opens with an ordinance which the king says was framed by the advice of
Wulfhelm, archbishop of Canterbury and his other bishops: no other witan
are mentioned. Now it is remarkable enough that this ordinance refers
exclusively to tithes, and other ecclesiastical dues, and works of
charity. But the secular ordinances which follow conclude with these
words: “All this was established in the great synod at Greátanleá; in
which was archbishop Wulfhelm, with all the noblemen and witan whom
Æðelstán the king [commanded to] gather together[518].”
-----
Footnote 518:
Thorpe, i. 214.
-----
The witan at Exeter, under the same king, are much more explicit as to
their powers: in the preamble to their laws, they say: “These are the
dooms which the witan at Exeter decreed, with the counsel of Æðelstán
the king, and again at Feversham, and a third time at Thundersfield,
where the whole was settled and confirmed together[519].”
-----
Footnote 519:
Ibid. i. 207.
-----
The concurrence of these witan is continually appealed to in the Saxon
laws which follow[520], and which are supplementary to the three gemóts
mentioned. But in a chapter (§ 7) concerning ordeals, the regulation is
said to be by command of God, the archbishop and all the bishops, and
the other witan are not mentioned; probably because the administration
of the ordeal was a special, ecclesiastical function. Again in the
Judicia Civitatis Londoniae the joint legislative authority of the king
and the witan is repeatedly alluded to[521].
-----
Footnote 520:
Æðelst. iv. Thorpe, i. 220, 224.
Footnote 521:
Æðelst. v. § 10, 11, 12. Thorpe, i. 238, 240.
-----
Eádmund commences his laws by stating that he had assembled a great
_synod_ in London at Easter, at which the two archbishops, Oda and
Wulfstan, were present, together with many bishops and persons of
ecclesiastical as well as secular condition[522]. And having thus given
the authority by which he acted, he proceeds to the details of his law,
which he again declares to have been promulgated, after deliberation
with the council of his witan, ecclesiastical and lay[523]. The council
of Culinton, held under the same prince, commences thus: “This is the
decree which Eádmund the king and his bishops, with his witan,
established at Culinton, concerning the maintenance of peace, and taking
the oaths of fidelity.”
-----
Footnote 522:
Thorpe, i. 244.
Footnote 523:
Ibid. i. 246.
-----
Next comes Eádgár, whose law commences in these words: “This is the
ordinance which Eádgár the king, with the counsel of his witan,
ordained, to the praise of God, his own honour, and the benefit of all
his people[524].”
-----
Footnote 524:
Ibid. i. 262; see also pp. 270, 272, 276.
-----
In like manner, Æðelred informs us that his law was ordained, “for the
better maintenance of the public peace, by himself and his witan at
Woodstock, in the land of the Mercians, according to the laws of the
Angles[525].” In precisely similar terms he speaks of new laws made by
himself and his witan at Wantage[526]. In a collection of laws passed in
1008, under the same prince, we find the following preamble[527]: “This
is the ordinance which the king of the English, with his witan, both
clerical and lay, have chosen[528] and advised;” and every one of the
first five paragraphs commences with the same solemn words, viz. “This
is the ordinance of our lord, and of his witan,” etc.
-----
Footnote 525:
Ibid. i. 280.
Footnote 526:
Ibid. i. 292.
Footnote 527:
Ibid. i. 304.
Footnote 528:
The word _ceósan_, to elect or choose, is the technical expression in
Teutonic legislation for ordinances which have been deliberated upon.
-----
But far more strongly is this marked in the provisions of the council of
Enham, under the same miserable prince. These are not only entitled,
“ordinances of the witan[529],” but throughout, the king is never
mentioned at all, and many of the chapters commence, “It is the
ordinance of the witan,” etc. If it were not for one or two enactments
referring to the safety of the royal person, and the dignity of the
crown, we might be almost tempted to imagine that the great councillors
of state had met, during Æðelred’s flight from England, and passed these
laws upon their own authority, without the king. The laws of 1014
commence again with the words so often repeated in this chapter[530],
and such also usher in the very elaborate collection which Cnut and his
witan compiled at Winchester[531].
-----
Footnote 529:
Thorpe, i. 314, 316, 318.
Footnote 530:
Ibid. i. 340, 342, 350.
Footnote 531:
Ibid. i. 358, 376.
-----
Now I think that any impartial person will be satisfied with these
examples, and admit that whoever the witan may have been, they possessed
a legislative authority, at least conjointly with the king. Indeed of
two hypothetical cases, I should be far more inclined to assert that
they possessed it without him, than that he possessed it without them:
at least, I can find no instance of the latter; while I have shown that
there was at least a probability of the former: and even Æðelred himself
says, twice: “Wise in former days were those secular witan[532] who
first added secular laws to the just divine laws, for bishops and
consecrated bodies; and reverenced for love of God holiness and holy
orders, and God’s houses and his servants firmly protected.” Again[533]:
“Wise were those secular witan who to the divine laws of justice added
secular laws for the government of the people; and decreed bót to Christ
and the king, that many should thus, of necessity, be compelled to
right.”
-----
Footnote 532:
Woroldwitan. Æðelr. vii. § 24. Thorpe, i. 334.
Footnote 533:
Æðelr. ix. § 36. Thorpe, i. 348.
-----
Is it not manifest that he, like Ælfred, really felt the legislative
power to reside in the witan, rather than in the king?
3. _The witan had the power of making alliances and treaties of peace,
and of settling their terms._
The defeat of the Danes by Ælfred, in 878, was followed, as is well
known, by the baptism of Guðorm Æðelstán, and the peaceful establishment
of his forces in portions of the ancient kingdoms of Mercia, Essex,
Eastanglia and Northumberland. The terms of this treaty, and the
boundaries of the new states thus constituted were solemnly ratified,
perhaps at Wedmore[534]; the first article of this important public act,
by which Ælfred obtained a considerable accession of territory, runs
thus[535]: “This is the peace that Ælfred the king, and Gyðrum the king,
and the witan of all the English nation, and all the people that are in
Eastanglia, have all ordained and confirmed with oaths, for themselves
and for their descendants, born and unborn, who desire God’s favour or
ours. First, concerning our land-boundaries,” etc. In like manner the
treaty which Eádweard entered into with the same Danes, is said to have
been frequently (“oft and unseldan”) renewed and ratified by the
witan[536].
-----
Footnote 534:
Chron. Sax. an. 878. Asser, _in anno_.
Footnote 535:
Thorpe, i. 152.
Footnote 536:
Thorpe, i. 166.
-----
We still have the terms of the shameful peace which Æðelred bought of
Olafr Tryggvason and his comrades in 994. The document, which was
probably signed at Andover[537], commences with the following words:
“These are the articles of peace and the agreement which Æðelred the
king and all his witan have made with the army which accompanied Anlaf,
and Justin and Guðmund, the son of Stegita[538].”
-----
Footnote 537:
Chron. Sax. an. 994.
Footnote 538:
Thorpe, i. 284.
-----
Many other instances might be cited, as for example the entry in the
Chronicle, anno 947, where it is stated that Eádred made a treaty of
peace with the witan of Northumberland at Taddenes scylf, which was
broken and renewed in the following year: but further evidence upon this
point seems unnecessary[539].
-----
Footnote 539:
See Chron. Sax. an. 1002, 1004, 1006, 1011, 1012. The solemn partition
of the kingdom between Eádmund írensída and Cnut was effected by the
witan, at Olney in Gloucestershire. Chron. Sax. an. 1016.
-----
4. _The witan had the power of electing the king._
The kingly dignity among the Anglosaxons was partly hereditary, partly
elective: that is to say, the kings were usually taken from certain
qualified families, but the witan claimed the right of choosing the
person whom they would have to reign. Their history is filled with
instances of occasions when the sons or direct descendants of the last
king have been set aside in favour of his brother or some other prince
whom the nation believed more capable of ruling: and the very rare
occurrence of discontent on such occasions both proves the authority
which the decision of the witan carried with it, and the great
discretion with which their power was exercised. Only here and there,
when the witan were themselves not unanimous, do we find any traces of
dissensions arising out of a disputed succession[540]. On every fresh
accession, the great compact between the king and the people was
literally, as well as symbolically, renewed, and the technical
expression for ascending the throne is being “gecoren and áhafen tó
cyninge,” elected and raised to be king: where the _áhafen_ refers to
the old Teutonic custom of what we still at election times call chairing
the successful candidate; and the _gecoren_ denotes the positive and
foregone conclusion of a real election. Alfred’s own accession is a
familiar instance of this fact: he was chosen, to the prejudice of his
elder brother’s children; but the nation required a prince capable of
coping with dangers and difficulty, and Asser tells us that he was not
only received as king by the unanimous assent of the people, but that,
had he so pleased, he might have dethroned his brother Æðelred and
reigned in his place[541]. His words are: “In the same year (871) the
aforesaid Ælfred, who hitherto, during the life of his brother, had held
a secondary place, immediately upon Æðelred’s death, by the grace of
God, assumed the government of the whole realm, with the greatest
goodwill of all the inhabitants of the kingdom; which indeed, even
during his aforesaid brother’s life, he might, had he chosen, have done
with the greatest ease, and by the universal consent; truly, because
both in wisdom and in all good qualities he much excelled all his
brothers; and moreover because he was particularly warlike, and
successful in nearly all his battles[542].”
Footnote 540:
I speak now of periods subsequent to the consolidation of the
monarchy: while England was full of kinglets, disputes were not
infrequent. Northumberland and Wessex (previous to Beorhtríc’s
alliance with Offa) furnish examples. But here the competitors were
numerous, and the witan themselves split into parties, generally
maintaining the interests of _different_ royal families.
Footnote 541:
Asser, an. 871.
Footnote 542:
Simeon of Durham uses equally strong terms on the occasion. “Ælfredus
a ducibus et a praesulibus totius gentis eligitur, et non solum ab
ipsis, verumetiam ab omni populo adoratur, ut eis praeesset, ad
faciendam vindictam in nationibus, increpationes in populis.” An. 871.
-----
Not one word have we here about his nephews, or any rights they might
possess: and Asser seems to think royalty itself a matter entirely
dependent upon the popular will, and the good opinion entertained by the
nation of its king. I shall conclude this head by citing a few instances
from Saxon documents of the intervention of the witan in a king’s
election and inauguration.
In 924, the Chronicle says: “This year died Eádweard the king at
Fearndún, among the Mercians ... and Æðelstán was chosen king by the
Mercians, and consecrated at Kingston.”
Florence of Worcester, an. 959, distinctly asserts that Eádgar was
elected by all the people of England,—“ab omni Anglorum populo electus
... regnum suscepit.”
In 979, the Chronicle again says: “This year Æðelred took to the
kingdom; and he was soon after consecrated king at Kingston, with great
rejoicing of the English witan.”
In 1016, the election of Eádmund írensída is thus related: “Then befel
it that king Æðelred died ... and then after his death, all the witan
who were in London, and the townsmen, chose Eádmund to be king.” Again
in 1017: “This year was Cnut elected king.”
In 1036 again we have these words: “This year died Cnut the king at
Salisbury ... and soon after his decease there was a gemót of all the
witan (‘ealra witena gemót’) at Oxford: and Leófríc the eorl, and almost
all the thanes north of the Thames, and the _lithsmen_ in London chose
Harald to be chief of all England; to him and his brother Hardacnut who
was in Denmark.” This election was opposed unsuccessfully by Godwine and
the men of Wessex.
The Chronicle contains a very important entry under the date 1014. Upon
the death of Swegen, we are told that his army elected Cnut king: “But
all the witan who were in England, both clerical and lay, decided to
send after king Æðelred[543]; and they declared that no lord could be
dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would rule them more
justly than he had done before. Then the king sent his son Eádweard
hither, with his messengers, and commanded them to greet all his
people[544]; and he said that he would be a loving lord to them, and
amend all those things which they all abhorred; and that everything
which had been said or done against him should be forgiven, on condition
that they all, with one consent and without deceit, would be obedient to
him. Then they established full friendship, by word and pledge on either
side, and declared every Danish king an outlaw from England for ever.”
-----
Footnote 543:
He had fled to Normandy.
Footnote 544:
Leóde and leódscipe, the words used in the Chronicle, _may_ possibly
mean only the great officers or ministerials, the Frankish _Leudes_.
But the balance of probability is in favour of its representing _the
whole people_: leódscipe, which is the reading of the most
manuscripts, having a more general sense than leóde.
-----
Cnut nevertheless succeeded; but after the extinction of his short-lived
dynasty, we are told that all the people elected Eádweard the Confessor
king. “1041. This year died Hardacnut.... And before he was buried, all
the people elected Eádweard king, at London.” Another manuscript
reads:—“1042. This year died Hardacnut, as he stood at his drink.... And
all the people then received Eádweard for their king, as was his true
natural right.”
One more quotation from a manuscript of the Saxon Chronicle shall
conclude this head:—“1066. In this year was hallowed the minster at
Westminster on Childermas-day (Dec. 28th). And king Eádweard died on the
eve of Twelfth-day, and he was buried on Twelfth-day in the newly
consecrated church at Westminster. And Harald the earl succeeded to the
kingdom of England, even as the king had granted it unto him, and men
also had elected him thereto. And he was consecrated king on
Twelfth-day.”
The witan of England had met to aid in the consecration of Westminster
Abbey, and, as was their full right, proceeded to elect a king, on
Eádweard’s decease.
5. _The witan had the power to depose the king, if his government was
not conducted for the benefit of the people._
It is obvious that the very existence of this power would render its
exercise an event of very rare occurrence. Anglosaxon history does
however furnish one clear example. In 755, the witan of Wessex,
exasperated by the illegal conduct of king Sigeberht, deposed him from
the royal dignity, and elected his relative Cynewulf in his stead. The
fact is thus related by different authorities. The Chronicle[545] says
very shortly:—“This year, Cynewulf and the witan of the Westsaxons
deprived his kinsman Sigeberht of his kingdom, except Hampshire[546],
for his unjust deeds.”
-----
Footnote 545:
Chron. Sax. an. 755.
Footnote 546:
Perhaps his own, ancestral kingdom. Does not all this look very much
as if Wessex was still only a confederation of petty principalities,
with one elective and paramount head?
-----
Florence tells the same story, but in other words[547]:—“Cynewulf, a
scion of the royal race of Cerdic, with the counsel of the Westsaxon
_primates_, removed their king Sigeberht from his realm, on account of
the multitude of his iniquities, and reigned in his place: however he
granted to him one province, which is called Hampshire.”
-----
Footnote 547:
Flor. Wig. an. 755.
-----
Æðelweard[548], whose royal descent and usual pedantry conspire to make
his account of the matter somewhat hazy, says:—“So, after the lapse of a
year from the time when Sigeberht began to reign, Cynewulf invaded his
realm and took it from him; and he drew the _sapientes_ of all the
western country after him, apparently, on account of the irregular acts
of the said king,” etc.
-----
Footnote 548:
Æðelw. an. 755, lib. ii. c. 17.
-----
The fullest account however of the whole transaction is given by Henry
of Huntingdon[549], who very frequently shows a remarkable acquaintance
with Saxon authorities which are now lost, but from which he translates
and quotes at considerable length. These are his words:—“Sigeberht, the
kinsman of the aforesaid king, succeeded him, but he held the kingdom
for a short time only: for being swelled up and insolent through the
successes of his predecessor, he became intolerable even unto his own
people. But when he continued to ill-use them in every way, and either
twisted the laws to his own advantage, or turned them aside for his
advantage, Cumbra, the noblest of his ealdormen, at the petition of the
whole people, brought their complaints before the savage king. Whom, for
attempting to persuade him to rule his people more mercifully, and
setting his inhumanity aside to show himself an object of love to God
and man, he shortly after commanded to be put to an impious death: and
becoming still more fierce and intolerable to his people, he aggravated
his tyranny. In the beginning of the second year of his reign, Sigeberht
the king continuing incorrigible in his pride and iniquity, the princes
and people of the whole realm collected together; and by provident
deliberation and unanimous consent of all he was expelled from the
throne. But Cynewulf, an excellent young prince, of the royal race, was
elected to be king[550].”
-----
Footnote 549:
Hen. Hunt. Hist. Ang. lib. iv.
Footnote 550:
“Sigebertus rex, in principio secundi anni regni sui, cum
incorrigibilis superbiae et nequitiae esset, congregati sunt proceres
et populus totius regni, et provida deliberatione, et unanimi consensu
omnium expulsus est a regno. Kinewulf vero, iuvenis egregius de regia
stirpe oriundus, electus est in regem.”
-----
I have little doubt that an equally formal, though hardly equally
justifiable, proceeding severed Mercia from Eádwig’s kingdom, and
reconstituted it as a separate state under Eádgar[551]; and lastly from
Simeon of Durham we learn that the Northumbrian Alchred was deposed and
exiled, with the counsel and consent of all his people[552].
-----
Footnote 551:
Flor. Wig. an. 957.
Footnote 552:
“Eodem tempore, Alcredus rex, consilio et consensu omnium suorum,
regiae familiae principum destitutus societate, exilio imperii mutavit
maiestatem.” Sim. Dun. an. 774. Other Germanic tribes did the same
thing. “Sed cum Aldoaldus eversa mente insaniret, de regno eiectus
est.” Paul. Diae. Langob. iv. 43. Among the Burgundians, “generali
nomine rex appellatur Hendinos, et _ritu veteri_, potestate deposita
removetur, si sub eo fortuna titubaverit belli, vel segetum copiam
negaverit terra.” Amm. Marc. xxxiii. 5.
-----
6. _The king and the witan had power to appoint prelates to vacant
sees._
As many of the witan were the most eminent of the clergy, and the people
might be fairly considered to be represented by the secular members of
the body, these elections were perhaps more canonical than the Frankish,
and assuredly more so than those which take place under our system by
_congé d’élire_. The necessary examples will be found in the Saxon
Chronicle, an. 971, 995, 1050. But one may be mentioned at length. In
959 Dúnstán was elected archbishop of Canterbury “consilio
sapientum[553].”
-----
Footnote 553:
“Dehinc beatus Dunstanus, Æthelmi archiepiscopi ex fratre nepos,
Glæstaniæ abbas, post Huicciorum et Londoniensium episcopus, ex
respectu divino et sapientum consilio, primae metropolis Anglorum
primas et patriarcha.” Flor. Wig. an. 959.
-----
7. _They had also power to regulate ecclesiastical matters, appoint
fasts and festivals, and decide upon the levy and expenditure of
ecclesiastical revenue._
The great question of monachism which convulsed the church and kingdom
in the tenth century, was several times brought before the consideration
of the witan, who, both clerical and lay, were very much divided upon
the subject. This perhaps is a sufficient reason why no formal act of
the gemót was ever passed on the subject, and the solution of the
problem was left to the bishops in their several cathedrals: but no
reader of Saxon history can be ignorant that it was frequently brought
before the gemót, and that it was the cause of deep and frequent
dissensions among the witan[554]. The festival days of St. Eádweard and
St. Dúnstán were fixed by the authority of the witan on the 15th Kal.
April and 14th Kal. June respectively[555]; and the laws contain many
provisions for the due keeping of the Sabbath, and the strict
celebration of fasts and festivals[556]. The levying of church-shots,
soul-shots, light-alms, plough-alms, tithes, and a variety of other
church imposts, the payment of which could not be otherwise legally
binding upon the laity, was made law by frequently repeated chapters in
the acts of the witan: these are much too numerous to need
specification. They direct the amount to be paid, the time of payment,
and the penalties to be inflicted on defaulters: nay, they actually
direct the mode in which such payments when received should be
distributed and applied by the receivers[557]. They establish, as law of
the land, the prohibitions to marry within certain degrees of
relationship: and lastly they adopt and sanction many regulations of the
fathers and bishops, respecting the life and conversation of priests and
deacons, canons, monks and religious women. On all these points it is
sufficient to give a general reference to the laws, which are full of
regulations even to the minutest details.
-----
Footnote 554:
Flor. Wig. an. 975, says, “Et in synodo constituti, se nequaquam ferre
posse dixerunt, ut monachi eiicerentur de regno.”
Footnote 555:
Æðelr. v. § 16. Cnut, i. § 17. Thorpe, i. 310, 370.
Footnote 556:
For example, Cnut, i. § 14, 15, 16. Thorpe, i. 368, etc.
Footnote 557:
For example, Æðelr. ix. § 6. Thorpe, i. 342. Æðelr. vi. § 51. Thorpe,
i. 328, etc.
-----
8. _The king and the witan had power to levy taxes for the public
service._
I have observed in an earlier chapter of this work that the estates of
the freeman were bound to make certain settled payments. These may at
some time or other have been voluntary, but there can be no doubt that
they did ultimately become compulsory payments. They are the cyninges
gafol, payable on the hide, and may possibly be the cyninges útware, and
cyninges geban of the laws, the _contributions directes_ by which a
man’s station in society was often measured. Now in the time of Ini, we
find the witan regulating the amount of this tax or gafol, in barley, at
six pounds weight upon the hide[558]. Again, under the extraordinary
circumstances of the Danish war under Æðelred, when it became almost
customary to buy off the invaders, we find them authorising the levy of
large sums for that purpose[559], and also for the maintenance of
fleets[560]: these payments, once known by the name of Danegeld, and
which in 1018 amounted to the enormous sum of 82,500 pounds[561], were
after thirty-nine years’ continuance finally abolished by Eádweard[562].
-----
Footnote 558:
Ini, § 59. Thorpe, i. 140. Wyrhta like the factus (= Mansus) of the
Franks appears to be the Mansio or Hide. But the amounts do not
concern us at present.
Footnote 559:
Chron. Sax. an. 1006. The sum raised was thirty-six thousand pounds.
Chron. an. 1012. In this year forty-eight thousand pounds were paid.
Footnote 560:
Chron. Sax. an. 1008. A ship from every three hundred hides; and a
helmet and coat-of-mail from every eight hides,—a very heavy amount of
shipmoney.
Footnote 561:
Chron. Sax. an. 1018.
Footnote 562:
Ibid. an. 1052.
-----
9. _The king and his witan had power to raise land and sea forces when
occasion demanded._
The king always possessed of himself the right to call out the ban or
armed militia of the freemen: he also possessed the right of commanding
at all times the service of his comites and their vassals: but the armed
force of the freemen could only be kept on foot for a definite period,
and probably within definite limits. It seems therefore that when the
pressure of extraordinary circumstances called for more than common
efforts, and the nation was to be urged to unusual exertions, the
authority of the witan was added to that of the king; and that much more
extensive levies were made than by merely calling out the _hereban_ or
_landsturm_. And this particularly applies to naval armaments, which
were hardly a part of the constitutional force, at all events not to any
great extent[563]. Accordingly we find in the Chronicle that the king
and the witan commanded armaments to be made against the Danes in 999,
and at the same time directed a particular service to be sung in the
churches. We learn distinctly from another event that the disposal of
this force depended upon the popular will: for when Svein, king of the
Danes, made application to Eádweard the Confessor for a naval force in
aid of his war against Magnus of Norway, and Godwine recommended
compliance, we find that it was refused because Earl Leófríc of
Coventry, and all the people, with one voice opposed it[564].
-----
Footnote 563:
The Butsecarls or shipmen of the seaports may possibly have been
obliged to find shipping and serve on board.
Footnote 564:
Flor. 1047, 1048. Compare Chron. Sax. _in an. cit._
-----
10. _The witan possessed the power of recommending, assenting to, and
guaranteeing grants of lands, and of permitting the conversion of
folcland into bócland, and vice versâ._
With regard to the first part of this assertion, it will be sufficient
to refer to any page of the Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici: it is
impossible almost to find a single grant in that collection which does
not openly profess to have been made by the king, “cum consilio,
consensu et licentia procerum,” or similar expressions. And the
necessity for such consent will appear intelligible when we consider
that these grants must be understood, either to be direct conversions of
folcland (fiscal or public property) into bócland (private estates),
beneficiary into hereditary tenure; or, that they contain licences to
free particular lands from the ancient, customary dues to the state. In
both cases the public revenue, of which king and witan were fiduciary
administrators, was concerned: inasmuch as nearly every estate,
transferred from folcland to bócland, became just so much withdrawn from
the general stock of ways and means. Only in the case where lands were
literally exchanged from one category into the other, did the state
sustain no loss. Of this we have evidence in a charter of the year
858[565]. The king and Wulfláf his thane exchanged lands in Kent,
Æðelberht receiving an estate of five plough-lands at Mersham and giving
five plough-lands at Wassingwell. The king then freed the land at
Wassingwell in as ample degree as that at Mersham had been freed; that
is, from every description of service, or impost, except the three
inevitable burthens, of military service, and repair of fortifications
and bridges. And having done so, he made the land at Mersham, folcland,
i. e., imposed the burthens upon it.
-----
Footnote 565:
Cod. Dipl. No. 281.
-----
That this is a just view of the powers of the witan in respect to the
folcland, further appears from instances where the king and the witan,
on one part, as representatives of the nation for that purpose, make
grants to the king in his individual capacity. In 847, a case of this
kind occurred: Æðelwulf of Wessex obtained twenty hides of land at Ham,
as an estate of inheritance, from his witan[566]. The words used are
very explicit: “I Æðelwulf, by God’s aid king of the Westsaxons, with
the consent and licence of my bishops and my princes, have caused a
certain small portion of land, consisting of twenty hides, to be
described by its boundaries, to me, as an estate of inheritance.” And
again: “These are the boundaries of those twenty hides which Æðelwulf’s
senators granted to him at Ham.” We learn that Offa, king of the
Mercians, had in a similar manner caused one hundred and ten hides in
Kent to be given to him and his heirs as an estate of bócland[567],
which he had afterwards left to the monastery at Bedford. And this is a
peculiarly valuable record, because it was only by conquest that Offa
and his witan could have obtained a right to dispose of lands beyond the
limits of his own kingdom. Between 901 and 909 the witan of the
Westsaxons booked a very small portion of land to Ælfred’s son Eádweard,
for the site of his monastery at Winchester[568]. In 963 we have another
instance: Eádgár caused five hides to be given him at Peatanige as an
estate of inheritance. The terms of the document are unusual: he says,
“I _have_ a portion of land,” etc., but he frees it from all burthens
but the three, and renders it heritable. The rubric says: “This is the
charter of five hides at Peatanige, which are Eádgár’s the king’s,
during his day and after his day, to have, or to give to whom it
pleaseth him best[569].” Again in 964, the same prince gave to his wife
Ælfðrýð ten hides at Aston in Berkshire, as an estate of inheritance,
“consilio satellitum, pontificum, comitum, militum[570].” It is obvious
that in all these cases the grants were made out of public land, and
were not the private estates of the king.
-----
Footnote 566:
Cod. Dipl. No. 260.
Footnote 567:
Ibid. No. 1019.
Footnote 568:
Ibid. No. 1087.
Footnote 569:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1246. “Aliquam terrae particulam [h]abeo, id est
quinque mansas ... æt Peatanige, quatinus bene perfruar, ac
perpetualiter possideam, vita comite, et post me cuicunque voluero
perhenniter haeredi derelinquam in aeternam haereditatem,” etc.
Footnote 570:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1253.
-----
11. _The witan possessed the power of adjudging the lands of offenders
and intestates to be forfeit to the king._
This power applied to bócland, as well as folcland, and was exercised in
cases which are by no means confined to the few enumerated in the laws.
Indeed the latter may very probably refer to nothing but the chattels or
personal property of the offender; while the real estate might be
transferred to the king, by the solemn act of the witan. A few examples
will make this clear.
Ælfred, condemned for treason or rebellion against Æðelstán, lost his
lands by the judgment of the witan, who bestowed them upon the
king[571]. In 1002 a lady forfeited her lands for her incontinence; the
king became seised of them, obviously by the act of the gemót, for he
calls it _vulgaris traditio_[572]. Again, the lands of certain people
which had been forfeited for theft, are described as having been granted
to the king, “iusto valde iudicio totius populi, seniorum et
primatum[573].”
-----
Footnote 571:
Ibid. No. 1112.
Footnote 572:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1295.
Footnote 573:
Ibid. No. 374.
-----
The case of intestacy is proved by a charter of Ecgberht in 825. He gave
fifteen hides at Aulton to Winchester, and made title in these words.
“Now this land, a very faithful reeve of mine called Burghard formerly
possessed by my grant: but he afterwards dying childless, left the land
without a will, and he had no survivors: and so the land with all its
boundaries was restored to me, its former possessor, by judicial decree
of my _optimates_[574].”
-----
Footnote 574:
Ibid. No. 1035.
-----
Other examples may be found in the quotations given in page 52 of this
volume; to which I may add a case of forfeiture for suicide[575].
-----
Footnote 575:
The charter which furnishes the evidence of this fact will appear in
the seventh volume of the Codex Diplomaticus. It is in the archives of
Westminster Abbey, and its date is the time of Eádgár. [The death of
Mr. Kemble in 1857 prevented the publication of this seventh volume.]
-----
12. _Lastly, the witan acted as a supreme court of justice, both in
civil and criminal causes._
The fact of important trials being decided by the witena gemót is
obvious from a very numerous list of charters recording the result of
such trials, and printed in the Codex Diplomaticus. It is perfectly
unnecessary to give examples; they occur continually in the pages of
that work. The documents are in great detail, giving the names of the
parties, the heads of the case, sometimes the very steps in the trial,
and always recording the place and date of the gemót, and the names of
those who presided therein.
The proceedings of the witan as a court of criminal jurisprudence, are
well exemplified in the case of earl Godwine and his family daring their
patriotic struggle for power with the foreign minions of Eádweard, and
the northern earls, the hereditary enemies of their house. Eustace the
count of Boulogne, then on a visit to Eádweard, having with a small
armed retinue attempted violence against some of the inhabitants of
Dover, was set upon by the townsmen, and after a severe loss hardly
succeeded in making his escape. He hastened to Gloucester, where
Eádweard then held his court, and laid his complaint before the king.
Godwine, as earl of Kent, was commanded to set out with his forces, and
inflict summary punishment upon the burghers who had dared to maltreat a
relative of the king. But the stern old statesman saw matters in a very
different light: he probably found no reason to punish the inhabitants
of one of his best towns, for an act of self defence, especially one
which had read a severe lesson to the foreign adventurers, who abused
the weakness of an incapable prince, and domineered over the land. He
therefore flatly refused, and withdrew from Gloucester to join his sons
Harald and Swegen who lay at Beverston and Langtree with a considerable
power. The king being reinforced by a well-appointed contingent from the
northern earldoms, affairs threatened to be brought to a bloody
termination. The conduct of Godwine and his family had been represented
to Eádweard in the most unfavourable colours, and the demand they made
that the obnoxious strangers should be given up to them, only aggravated
his deep resentment. However for a time peace was maintained, hostages
were given on either side, and a witena gemót was proclaimed, to meet in
London, at the end of a fortnight, September 21st, 1048. On the arrival
of the earls in Southwark, they found that a greatly superior force from
the commands of Leofríc, Sigeward and Raulf awaited them: desertion
thinned their numbers, and when the king demanded back his hostages,
they were compelled to comply. Godwine and Harald were now summoned to
appear before the gemót and make answer to what should be brought
against them. They demanded, though probably with little expectation of
obtaining, a safe conduct to and from the gemót, which was refused; and
as they very properly declined under such circumstances to appear, five
days were allowed them to leave England altogether.
It is probable that the strictly legal forms were followed on this
occasion, although the composition of the gemót was such that justice
could not have been done. The same observation will apply to another
witena gemót holden in London, after Godwine’s triumphant return to
England, though with a very different result. Before this assembly the
earl appeared, easily cleared himself of all offences laid to his
charge, and obtained the outlawry and banishment from England of all the
Frenchmen whose pernicious councils had put dissension between the king
and his people. Other examples might be given of outlawry, and even
heavier sentences, as blinding, if not death, pronounced by the high
court of the witan. But as these are all the result of internal
dissensions, they resemble rather the violence of impeachments by an
irresistible majority, than the calm, impassive judgments of a judicial
assembly[576].
-----
Footnote 576:
At a gemót in 1055, earl Ælfgár was outlawed. At a gemót in 1066 at
Oxford, earl Tostig was outlawed, etc.
-----
Such were the powers of the witena gemót, and it must be confessed that
they were extensive. Of the manner of the deliberations or the forms of
business we know little, but it is not likely that they were very
complicated. We may conclude that the general outline of the proceedings
was something of the following order. On common occasions the king
summoned his witan to attend him at some royal vill, at Christmas, or at
Easter, for festive and ceremonial as well as business purposes. On
extraordinary occasions he issued summonses according to the nature of
the exigency, appointing the time and place of meeting. When assembled,
the witan commenced their session by attending divine service[577], and
formally professing their adherence to the catholic faith[578]. The king
then brought his propositions before them, in the Frankish manner[579],
and after due deliberation they were accepted, modified, or rejected.
The reeves, and perhaps on occasion officers specially designated for
that service[580], carried the chapters down into the several counties,
and there took a _wed_ or pledge from the freemen that they would abide
by what had been enacted. This last fact, important to us in more
respects than one, is substantiated by the following evidence. Toward
the close of the Judicia Civitatis Londoniae (cap. 10), passed in the
reign of Æðelstán, and subsidiary to the acts of various gemóts held by
him, we find:—“All the witan gave their pledges together to the
archbishop at Thundersfield, when Ælfheáh Stybb and Brihtnóð, Odda’s
son, came to meet the gemót by the king’s command, that each reeve
should take the pledge in his own shire, that they would all hold the
frið, as king Æðelstán and the witan had counselled it, first at
Greátanleá, and again at Exeter, and afterwards at Feversham, and the
fourth time at Thundersfield,” etc.
-----
Footnote 577:
See vol. i. p. 145 note.
Footnote 578:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1019.
Footnote 579:
I conclude this from the Prologue to Ælfred’s Laws.
Footnote 580:
The Franks and the church were familiar with such officers, who under
the name of _Missi_ were dispatched into the provinces for special
purposes. Perhaps the Ælfheáh and Brihtnóð mentioned in the Judicia
Civitatis were the Missi who were to be employed on this commission.
-----
We have also a very remarkable document addressed to the same king,
apparently upon receipt of the acts of the council at Feversham, by the
men of Kent, denoting their acceptance of the same. They commence by
saying:—“Dearest! Thy bishops of Kent, and all the thanes of Kentshire,
earls and churls[581], return thanks to thee their dearest lord, for
what thou hast been pleased to ordain respecting our peace, and to
enquire and consult concerning our advantage, since great was the need
thereof for us all, both rich and poor. And this we have taken in hand,
with all the diligence we could, by the aid of those witan [_sapientes_]
whom thou didst send unto us,” etc[582].
-----
Footnote 581:
Mr. Hallam, in his Supplemental Notes, p. 229, remarks upon this
important document: “It is moreover an objection to considering this a
formal enactment by the witan of the shire, that it runs in the names
of ‘thaini, comites et villani.’ Can it be maintained that the ceorls
ever formed an integrant element of the legislature in the kingdom of
Kent? It may be alleged that their name was inserted, though they had
not been formally consenting parties, as we find in some parliamentary
grants of money much later. But this would be an arbitrary conjecture,
and the terms ‘omnes thaini,’ etc. are very large.”
If the ceorls ever did form an integral part of the legislature in the
kingdom of Kent, the whole question is settled. But I do not
contemplate the thanes in Kent acting here as a legislative body: that
is, I do not believe Æðelstán’s witan in Wessex to have passed a law,
and then his witan in Kent to have accepted or continued it. I believe
his witan from all England to have made certain enactments, which the
proper officers brought down to the various shires, and in the
shiremoots there took pledge of the shire-thanes that they accepted
and would abide by the premises; just as in the case quoted on the
preceding page. And this is the more striking because there is every
reason to suppose that the witena gemót whose acts the shire-thanes of
Kent thus accepted was actually holden at Feversham in that county.
But it is further to be observed that the document we possess is a
late Latin translation of the original sent to Æðelstán: I will
venture to assert that in that original the words used were, “ealle
scírþegnas on Cent, ge eorl ge ceorl,” or perhaps “ge twelfhynde ge
twihynde.” Again, there is no reason to suppose that the ceorls did
_not_ form an integrant part of the shiremoot, the representative of
the ancient, independent legislature. A full century later than the
date of the council of Feversham, they continued to do so in the same
kingdom or, at that period, earldom: and it will be readily admitted
that during those hundred years the tendency of society was not to
increase the power or improve the condition of the ceorl. Between 1013
and 1020 we thus find Cnut addressing the authorities in Kent (Cod.
Dipl. No. 731):—“Cnut the king sends friendly greeting to archbishop
Lýfing, bishop Godwine, abbot Ælfmǽr, Æðelwine the sheriff, Æðelríc,
and all my thanes, both twelve-hundred and two-hundred men,—ealle míne
þegnas twelfhynde and twihynde:”—in other words, both eorl and ceorl,
nobilis and ignobilis, or as the witan of Æðelstán have it, in the
Norman translation, comites et villani. The nature of Cnut’s writ,
which is addressed to the authorities of the county, the archbishop
and sheriff, shows clearly that the thanes in question are not those
royal officers called cyninges þegnas—who could never be two-hundred
men—but the scírþegnas. These are of frequent occurrence in Anglosaxon
documents. The scírgemót at Ægelnóðes stán (about 1038) was attended
by Æðelstán the bishop, Ranig the ealdorman, Bryning the sheriff and
all the thanes in Herefordshire. Cod. Dipl. No. 755. A sale by Stigand
was witnessed by all the scírþegnas in Hampshire; that is, it was a
public instrument completed in the shiremoot. Cod. Dipl. No. 949.
Again a grant of Stigand was witnessed about 1053 by various
authorities in Hampshire, including Eádsige the sheriff and all the
scírþegnas. Cod. Dipl. No. 1337: and similarly a third of the same
prelate, Cod. Dipl. No. 820. About the same period Wulfwold abbot of
Bath makes title to lands, which he addresses to bishop Gisa, Tofig
the sheriff and all the thanes of Somersetshire. Cod. Dipl. No. 821.
In the year 1049, Ðurstán granted lands at Wimbush by witness of a
great number of persons, among whom are Leófcild the sheriff and all
the thanes of Essex. Cod. Dipl. No. 788: and about the same time
Gódríc bought lands at Offham, in a shiremoot at Wii, before all the
shire. Cod. Dipl. No. 789. Lastly, Leófwine bought land, by witness of
Ulfcytel the sheriff and all the thanes in Herefordshire. Cod. Dipl.
No. 802. The relation of these thanes to the gódan men or dohtigan men
(good men, doughty men, boni et legales homines, Scabini,
Rachinburgii, etc.) will be examined in a subsequent Book, when I come
to treat of the courts of justice: but I will here add one example,
which is illustrative of the subject of this note. The
marriage-covenants of Godwine, arranged before Cnut, by witness of
archbishop Lyfing and others, including Æðelwine the sheriff, and
various Kentish landowners, are stated to be in the knowledge
(geenǽwe) of every _doughty man_ in Kent and Sussex (where the lands
lay) both thane and churl. Cod. Dipl. No. 732. There was nothing
whatever to prevent a man from being a scírþegn, whether eorlcund or
ceorlcund, as long as he had land in the scír itself: without land,
even a cyninges þegn could certainly not be a scírþegn. It is true
that a man might be of síðcund rank, that is noble, without owning
land (see Leg. Ini, § 51), and there were king’s thanes who had no
land (Æðelst. v. § 11); but such a one could assuredly not represent
himself in the scírgemót. There is a common error which runs through
much of what has been admitted on this subject: the ceorl is
universally represented in a low condition. This is not however
necessarily the case: some ceorls, though well to do in the world, may
have preferred their independence to the conventional dignity of
thaneship. We may admit, as a general rule, that the thanes were a
wealthier class than the ceorls; indeed, without becoming a thane, a
ceorl had little chance of getting a grant of folcland or bócland, but
some of them may have, through various circumstances, inherited or
purchased considerable estates: as late as the year 984, I find an
estate of eight hides (that is 264 acres according to my reckoning) in
the possession of a _rusticus_, obviously a ceorl:—“Illud videlicet
rus quod Æðeríc quidam rusticus prius habuisse agnoscitur.” Cod. Dipl.
No. 1282.
Footnote 582:
Thorpe, i. 216. Æðelstán complains on another occasion that the oaths
and _weds_ which had been given _to the king and his witan_ were all
broken: “quia iuramenta et vadia, quae regi et sapientibus data
fuerunt, semper infracta sunt et minus observata quam Deo et saeculo
conveniant.” Æðelst. iii. § 3. Thorpe, i. 218. Again: Æðelstán the
king makes known, that I have learned that our peace is worse kept
than is pleasing to me, or as was ordained at Greatley; and my witan
say that I have borne with it too long.... Because the oaths, and
weds, and _borhs_ are all disregarded and broken which on that
occasion were given, etc. Æðelst. iv. § 1. Thorpe, i. 220.
-----
It is plain from the preceding passage that the witan gave their _wed_
to observe, and cause to be observed, the laws they had enacted[583].
Eádgár says, “I command my geréfan, upon my friendship, and by all they
possess, to punish every one that will not perform this, and who by any
neglect shall break the _wed_ of my witan.” This seems to imply that the
people were generally bound by the acts of the witan, and their pledge
or _wed_; and if it were so, it would naturally involve the theory of
representation. But this deduction will not stand.
-----
Footnote 583:
Conc. Wihtbordes stán. Eádg. Supp. § 1. Thorpe, i. 272.
-----
The whole principle of Teutonic legislation is, and always was, that the
law is made by the constitution of the king, and the consent of the
people[584]: and we have seen one way in which that consent was
obtained, viz. by sending the _capitula_ down into the provinces or
shires, and taking the _wed_ in the shiremoot. The passage in the text
seems to presuppose an interchange of oaths and pledges between the king
and witan themselves; and even those who had no standing of their own in
the folcmót or scírgemót, were required to be bound by _personal_
consent. The lord was just as much commanded to take oath and pledge of
his several dependents (the hired men, _familiares_, or people of his
household), as the sheriff was required to take them of the free
shire-thanes[585]. Of course this excludes all idea of representation in
our modern sense of the word, because with us, promulgation by the
Parliament is sufficient, and the constituent is bound without any
further ceremony by the act of him whom he has sent in his own place.
But the Teutons certainly did not elect their representatives as we
elect ours, with full power to judge, decide for, and bind us, and
therefore it was right and necessary that the laws when made should be
duly ratified and accepted by all the people.
-----
Footnote 584:
“Lex consensu populi fit, et constitutione regis.” Edict. Pistense.
an. 864. Pertz, iii. 490, § 6.
Footnote 585:
Æðelst. v. § 11. Thorpe, i. 240.
-----
Although the dignified clergy, the ealdormen and geréfan, and the þegnas
both in counties and boroughs, appear to have constituted the witena
gemót properly so called, there is still reason to suppose that the
people themselves, or some of them, were very often present. In fact a
system gradually framed as I suppose that of our forefathers to have
been, and indebted very greatly to accident for its form, must have
possessed a very considerable elasticity. The people who were in the
neighbourhood, who happened to be collected in arms during a sitting of
the witan, or who thought it worth while to attend their meeting, were
very probably allowed to do so, and to exercise at least a right of
conclamation[586],—a right which must daily become rarer, as the freemen
gradually disappeared, and the number of landowners, dependent upon and
represented by lords, as rapidly increased. In conclusion a few passages
may be cited, which seem to render it probable that the people, when on
the spot, did take some part in the business, as I have already
mentioned with respect to the Frankish levies in the Campus Madius of
Charlemagne. But it must also be borne in mind that such a case ought to
be looked upon as accidental, rather than necessary, and that a meeting
of the witan did not require the formality of an acceptance by the
people on the spot, to render its acts obligatory. It was enough that
the thanes of the gemót should pass, and the thanes of the scír accept
the law. Indeed it could not be otherwise; for as the heads of all the
more important social aggregations of the free, and the lords whose men
were represented by them even in courts of justice, were the members of
the gemót, their decisions must have been, strictly considered, the real
decisions of the _populus_, or franchise-bearing people.
-----
Footnote 586:
There is evidence of their doing this on a somewhat less solemn
occasion, though perhaps it was a shiremoot. Æðelstán, a duke, booked
land to Abingdon, by witness of bishop Cynsige, archbishop Wulfhelm,
Hroðweard, and other prelates. The boundaries were solemnly led, and
then the assembled bishops and abbots excommunicated any one who
should dispossess the monastery: and all the people that stood round
about cried “So be it! So be it!” “And cwæð ealle ðæt folc ðe ðǽr
embstód, Sý hit swá. Amen. Amen.” “Et dixit onmis populus qui ibi
aderat, Fiat, Fiat. Amen.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1129.
-----
Beda, relating the discussion which took place respecting the
celebration of Easter, and which was held in the presence of Oswiu and
Alhfrið of Northumberland, and Wilfrið’s successful defence of the Roman
custom, adds: “When the king had said these words, all who sat or stood
around assented: and abandoning the less perfect institution, they
hastened to adopt what they recognized as a better one[587].” Again the
deposition of Sigeberht is stated to have taken place in an assembly of
the _proceres_ and _populus_, the princes and people of the whole
realm[588]. A doubtful charter of Ini, A.D. 725, is said to be consented
to “cum praesentia populationis[589],” by which words are meant either
the witan or the people of Wessex. In 804 Æðelríc’s title-deeds were
confirmed before a gemót at Clofesho: the charter recites that
archbishop Æðelheard gave judgment, with the witness of king Cóenwulf
and his _optimates_, before all the synod or meeting: whence it is clear
that others were present besides the _optimates_ or witan strictly so
called[590]. On the 28th of May 924 a gemót was held at Winchester,
“tota populi generalitate,” as the charter witnesses[591], and in 931
another at Worðig, “tota plebis generalitate[592].” Æðelstán in 938
declares that certain lands had been forfeited for theft, by the just
judgment of all the people, _and_ the Seniores and Primates; and that
the original charters were cancelled by a decree of all the people[593].
-----
Footnote 587:
Hist. Eccl. iii. c. 25.
Footnote 588:
Hen. Hunt. lib. iv.
Footnote 589:
Cod. Dipl. No. 73.
Footnote 590:
Cod. Dipl. No. 186.
Footnote 591:
Ibid. No. 364.
Footnote 592:
Ibid. No. 1103.
Footnote 593:
“Iusto valde iudicio totius populi, et seniorum et primatum,” etc.
“Ideoque decretum est ab omni populo,” etc. Cod. Dipl. No. 374.
-----
But whether expressions of this kind were intended to denote the actual
presence of the people on the spot; or whether _populus_ is used in a
strict and technical sense—that sense which is confined to those who
enjoy the full franchise, those who form part of the πολιτευμα,—or
finally whether the assembly of the witan making laws is considered to
represent in our modern form an assembly of the whole people,—it is
clear that the power of self-government is recognized in the latter.
In order to facilitate reference to the important facts with which this
chapter deals, I have added to it a list of witena gemóts, with here and
there a few remarks upon the business transacted in them. They do not
nearly exhaust the number that must have been held, but still they form
a respectable body of evidence; and we may perhaps be justly surprised,
not that so little, but that so much has survived. We need not lament
that the present forms and powers of our parliament are not those which
existed a thousand years ago, as long as we recognize in them only the
matured development of an old and useful principle. We shall not appeal
to Anglosaxon custom to justify the various points of the Charter; but
we may still be proud to find in their practice the germ of institutions
which we have, throughout all vicissitudes, been taught to cherish as
the most valuable safeguards of our peace as well as our freedom. Truly
there are few nations whose parliamentary history has so ample a
foundation as our own.
THE WITENA GEMÓTS OF THE SAXONS.
----------
ÆÐELBERT OF KENT, A.D. 596-605.—The promulgation of the laws of
Æðelberht took place during the life of Augustine. This fixes their date
between 596, when he arrived in England, and 605, when he died. Beda
tells us that these laws were enacted by the advice of the witan, “cum
consilio sapientium[594].” We may therefore conclude that a gemót was
held in Kent for the purpose: and from the contents of the laws
themselves, it is obvious that the Roman clergy filled an important
place therein. They had probably stepped into the position of the Pagan
priesthood, and improved it.
-----
Footnote 594:
Hist. Eccl. ii. 5.
-----
EÁDUUINI OF NORTHUMBERLAND, A.D. 627.—The first witena gemót of which we
have any detailed record was holden in 627, near the city of York,
wherein no less important business was discussed than the desertion of
Paganism and reception of Christianity, by the people of Northumberland.
From Beda[595] we learn that this step was not ventured without the
gravest deliberation; and that Eáduuini had taken good care to sound the
most influential of his nobles, before he called a public meeting to
decide upon the question. Indeed the parts in this great drama appear to
have been arranged beforehand. The interesting account given by
Beda[596] is to this effect. Eáduuini had determined to embrace
Christianity, but still he was not contented, or would not venture, to
do this alone. He wished to extend the blessings of the new faith to his
subjects; perhaps also to avoid the difficulties which might result from
his conversion, while the rest of the people remained pagans. To the
exhortations of the missionary Paulinus he rejoined, “suscipere quidem
se fidem quam docebat, et velle, et debere ... verum adhuc cum amicis,
principibus et consiliariis suis, sese de hoc collaturum esse dicebat;
ut si illi eadem cum illo sentire vellent, omnes pariter in fonte vitae
Christo consecrarentur. Et annuente Paulino, fecit ut dixerat. Habito
enim cum sapientibus consilio, sciscitabatur singillatim ab omnibus,
qualis sibi doctrina haec eatenus inaudita, et novus divinitatis qui
praedicabatur cultus videretur.” The chief of his priests, Cóefi,
immediately commenced an attack upon the ancient religion, and was
followed by other nobles, one of whose speeches, the earliest specimen
of English parliamentary eloquence, is yet on record[597]. “His similia
et caeteri maiores natu ac regis consiliarii, divinitus admoniti,
prosequebantur.” Paulinus was now invited to expound at greater length
the doctrines which he recommended. At the close of his address Cóefi
declared himself a convert, and proposed the destruction of the ancient
fanes. Eáduuini now professed himself a Christian, and in turn demanded
whose duty it was to profane the pagan altars. This Cóefi at once
assumed to himself, and taking the most conspicuous means to demonstrate
to the people (who, the historian says, thought him mad,) his apostasy
from the old creed, hurled his lance into the sacred enclosure, and
commanded its immediate destruction. The scene of this daring act was
Godmundingahám, not far from the British Delgovitia, and now Godmundham
or Goodmanham. The king then as speedily as possible, “citato opere,”
built a wooden basilica in the city of York, in which he was solemnly
baptized on the twelfth of April, being Easter-day. And thus, says the
historian, Eáduuini became a Christian, “cum cunctis gentis suae
nobilibus ac plebe perplurima[598].”
-----
Footnote 595:
Ibid. ii. 9.
Footnote 596:
Ibid. ii. 13.
Footnote 597:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. ii. 13.
Footnote 598:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. ii. 14.
-----
WULFHARI OF MERCIA, A.D. 657.—In this year a witena gemót was probably
held for the endowment and consecration of Saxwulf’s monastery at
Peterborough. This the king is stated to have done by the advice, and
with the consent, of all the witan of his kingdom, both clerical and
lay[599]. The charter in the Saxon Chronicle is a late forgery, but
throws no well-grounded doubt upon the fact.
-----
Footnote 599:
Chron. Sax. an. 657. Cod. Dipl. No. 984.
-----
ÓSUUIU OF NORTHUMBERLAND, A.D. 662.—A meeting was held this year at
Streoneshalh, to bring about uniformity of Paschal observance, tonsure,
and other ecclesiastical details. It was presided over by Osuuiu and
Alhfrið[600].
-----
Footnote 600:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. iii. 25.
-----
ECGBERHT OF KENT, A.D. 667.—A gemót was probably held in Kent, and
Wighard was elected archbishop of Canterbury[601].
-----
Footnote 601:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. iii. 29.
-----
ARCHBISHOP THEODORE, A.D. 673.—In this year was held the synod or gemót
of Hertford[602]. Beda has preserved its ecclesiastical acts. The
seventh provision is an important one, viz. that similar meetings should
be held twice in every year. But this appearing inconvenient, it was
agreed that there should be one, on the first of August yearly at
Clofeshoas.
-----
Footnote 602:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. iv. 5. Chron. Sax. an. 673.
-----
ARCHBISHOP THEODORE, A.D. 680.—In this year was held the gemót at
Hǽðfeld, in the presence of the kings of Northumberland, Mercia,
Eastanglia and Kent. Its ecclesiastical acts are preserved[603]: they
are particularly directed against the heresy of Eutyches. But there was
a witena gemót at the same time probably to sanction the decision of the
clergy.
-----
Footnote 603:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. iv. 17. Chron. Sax. an. 675, 680. Cod. Dipl. No.
991.
-----
ECGFRIÐ OF NORTHUMBERLAND, A.D. 684.—There was a gemót at Twyford, on
the river Alne, and Cúðberht was elected bishop of Hexham[604].
-----
Footnote 604:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. iv. 28. Cod. Dipl. No. 25.
-----
ÆÐELRED OF MERCIA, A.D. 685.—A gemót was held on the thirtieth of July
at Berhford, now Burford in Gloucestershire. Berhtwald the subregulus
and Æðelred were probably both present[605].
-----
Footnote 605:
Cod. Dipl. No. 26.
-----
WIHTRAED OF KENT, A.D. 696.—Immediately upon Wihtraed’s accession[606]
he held a great council, “mycel consilium,” or gemót of his witan, to
settle the ecclesiastical and secular difficulties which had arisen
during the civil wars of his predecessors and his own struggle for the
throne. The gemót was held at Beorganstede, now Berstead in Kent. Its
acts are extant in the laws which yet go under Wihtraed’s name[607].
Another gemót of Wihtraed’s, said by the Chronicle[608] to have been
held in 694 at Baccanceld, now Bapchild, in Kent, confirmed the
liberties of the Kentish clergy.
-----
Footnote 606:
The Saxon Chronicle, which often errs in its dates by two years, puts
this in 694. But the year 696 is ascertained by the indiction, which
was the ninth.
Footnote 607:
Thorpe, i. 36.
Footnote 608:
Chron. Sax. an. 694. Cod. Dipl. No. 996.
-----
INI OF WESSEX, A.D. 704.—A witena gemót was held by Ini at Eburleáh, in
which, with the consent of his witan, he gave certain privileges to the
monasteries of Wessex[609]. Its acts were signed by the principes,
senatores, iudices and patricii present. We learn also from a charter of
Aldhelm[610], that before 705, a council had been held upon the banks of
the river Woder, which is possibly the “synodus suae gentis” mentioned
by Beda[611].
-----
Footnote 609:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 50, 51.
Footnote 610:
Ibid. No. 54.
Footnote 611:
Hist. Eccl. v. 18.
-----
ÓSRAED OF NORTHUMBERLAND, A.D. 705.—Upon the death of Aldfrið in 705, a
gemót was held upon the banks of the Nidd, and after long debates bishop
Wilfrið was restored to his see and possessions[612].
-----
Footnote 612:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. v. 19.
-----
A.D. 710.—In this year a gemót appears to have been held, in which
Sussex was erected into a separate see, and severed from the diocese of
Winchester[613].
-----
Footnote 613:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. v. 18.
-----
ARCHBISHOP NÓÐHELM, A.D. 734-737.—Difficulties having arisen about the
possession and patronage of certain monasteries, the case was referred
to and decided by a synod, “sancta sacerdotalis concilii synodus,” which
must have met between 734-737. It seems to have been purely
ecclesiastical, and its acts are signed only by the bishops who were
present[614]. Yet as its judgment involved a question of property, and
title to lands, I presume that the case was laid before a mixed gemót,
sitting very possibly in different chambers. If so, the record we have
is that of the clerical house only.
-----
Footnote 614:
Cod. Dipl. No. 82.
-----
ÆÐELBALD OF MERCIA, A.D. 742.—In this year a great council, “magnum
concilium,” was held at Clofeshoas, under Æðelbald, and Cúðbeorht,
archbishop of Canterbury. It took into consideration the state of the
church; but it was clearly a witena gemót, and its acts are signed by
clerks and laymen indifferently[615].
-----
Footnote 615:
Cod. Dipl. No. 87.
-----
ÆÐELBALD OF MERCIA, A.D. 749.—A witena gemót was held at Godmundes leáh
in this year. Ecclesiastical liberties were again provided for[616].
-----
Footnote 616:
Cod. Dipl. No. 99.
-----
A.D. 755.—A witena gemót in Wessex must have been held in this year, for
the deposing of Sigebeorht and election of Cynewulf to the throne[617].
-----
Footnote 617:
Chron. Sax. an. 755. Flor. Wig. 755. Æðelw. ii. 17. Hen. Hunt. lib.
iv. See the remarks in the text, p. 219 _seq._ of this volume.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA, A.D. 780.—A gemót called “synodale conciliabulum” was
held this year at Brentford. It transacted various business of a secular
character[618].
-----
Footnote 618:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 139, 140, 143.
-----
A.D. 782.—A gemót was held at Acleáh, now Ockley in Surrey[619].
-----
Footnote 619:
Chron. Sax. an. 782.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA, A.D. 785.—In this year was held the stormy synod of
Cealchýð, in which the province of Canterbury was partitioned; and the
archbishopric of Lichfield founded[620]. It was clearly a witena gemót;
as Offa caused his son Ecgferhð to be elected king by the meeting.
-----
Footnote 620:
Chron. Sax. an. 785. Flor. Wig. 785.
-----
A.D. 787.—In this year there was another gemót; “synodalis conventus,”
at Ockley[621].
-----
Footnote 621:
Cod. Dipl. No. 151.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA, A.D. 788.—A gemót was held at Cealchýð[622]. And in the
same year; according to the Chronicle and Florence[623]; but one year
sooner according to Simeon Dunelmensis[624], was held the synod of
Pincanhealh in Northumberland.
-----
Footnote 622:
Cod. Dipl. No. 153.
Footnote 623:
Chron. Sax. an. 788. Flor. Wig. 788.
Footnote 624:
Sim. Dunelm. 787.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA, A.D. 789.—In this year another gemót was held at
Cealchýð, where a good deal of secular business was transacted[625]. In
the second document cited in the note it is called “pontificale
conciliabulum,” and this charter is signed only by the king and the
bishops.
Another gemót is also said to have been held at Ockley[626]; but the
known error of two years in the dates of the Chronicle may make us
suspect that this really met in 791.
-----
Footnote 625:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 155, 156, 157.
Footnote 626:
Chron. Sax. an. 789.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA; A.D. 790.—A great gemót was held this year in London; on
Whitsunday[627].
-----
Footnote 627:
Cod. Dipl. No. 159.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA, A.D. 793.—A gemót at Cealchýð, called “conventus
synodalis”[628]. Also about this time a gemót at Verulam, “concilium
episcoporum et optimatum,”[629]
-----
Footnote 628:
Cod. Dipl. No. 162.
Footnote 629:
Rog. Wend. i. 257.
-----
OFFA OF MERCIA, A.D. 794.—A gemót at Clofeshoas, called “synodus,” and
“concilium synodale”[630].
-----
Footnote 630:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 164, 167.
-----
ECGFERHÐ OF MERCIA, A.D. 796.—A gemót at Cealchýð, called probably in
consequence of Offa’s death, and for reformation of affairs in the
church[631].
-----
Footnote 631:
Chron. Sax. an. 796. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 172, 173.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 798.—A gemót, called “synodus,” the place of
which is not known. The business recorded is merely secular[632]. Before
the signatures occur the words: “Haec sunt nomina episcoporum ac
principum qui hoc mecum in synodo consentientes subscripserunt.” The
signatures comprise the names of several laics,—a plain proof that the
word _synodus_ is not confined to ecclesiastical meetings. Another, or
perhaps the same, at Baccanceld, Bapchild, in Kent, where the clergy
made a declaration of liberties[633]. Another and very solemn one at
Clofeshoas[634].
-----
Footnote 632:
Cod. Dipl. No. 175.
Footnote 633:
Ibid. No. 1018.
Footnote 634:
Ibid. No. 1019.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 799.—A gemót of the witan was held this year at
Colleshyl, probably Coleshill in Berkshire[635].
-----
Footnote 635:
Ibid. No. 176.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 799-802.—Between these two years there was a
gemót, called “synodale conciliabulum,” at Cealchýð, in which secular
business was transacted. The signature of the king to one of its acts is
double; first at the head of the clergy, and then again at the head of
the lay nobles[636].
-----
Footnote 636:
Ibid. No. 116. Another act, Ibid. No. 1023.
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 803.—In the year 803 was held a memorable synod
at Clofeshoas, which lasted from the ninth till the twelfth of October.
Affairs of great importance were discussed. The principal object of the
meeting was to restore the ancient splendour of Canterbury by the
abrogation of the archiepiscopal see at Lichfield, and further to secure
the liberties of the church. We have two solemn acts, dated on the
twelfth of October[637]: the signatures are exclusively those of
clerics. The second of those documents deserves the highest attention,
as the signatures may be taken to represent the members of a full
convocation of the clergy, called for a most important purpose. But it
is nevertheless certain that a general meeting of the witan took place
at the same time, for on the sixth of October they heard and determined
causes relating to landed property, and various laymen signed the
acts[638]. Moreover an archbishopric established by a witena gemót could
only be abrogated by another,—not by a mere assemblage of clergymen,
however dignified and influential they might be.
-----
Footnote 637:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 185, 1024.
Footnote 638:
Ibid. Nos. 183, 184.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 804.—There was a “synodus” in this year at
Clofeshoas, the nature of the business transacted in which and before
whom transacted, appears from these words following[639]:—“Anno ab
incarnatione Christi 804, indictione duodecima, ego Æðelríc filius
Æðelmundi cum conscientia synodali invitatus ad synodum, et in iudicio
stare, in loco qui dicitur Clofeshoh, cum libris et ruris, id est, æt
Westmynster, quod prius propinqui mei tradiderunt mihi et donaverunt,
ibi Æðelheardus archiepiscopus mihi regebat atque iudicaverat, cum
testimonio Coenwulfi regis, et optimatibus eius, coram omni synodo,
quando scripturas meas perscrutarent, ut liber essem terram meam atque
libellos dare quocumque volui.” He had been regularly summoned to appear
before the synodus, as a court of justice.
-----
Footnote 639:
Cod. Dipl. No. 186.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 805.—A witena gemót was held at Ockley, a
favourite locality[640].
-----
Footnote 640:
Cod. Dipl. No. 190.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 810.—Another gemót, “sancta synodus,” sat at
Ockley, and decided a lawsuit between Æðelhelm, and Beornðryð, the widow
of Óswulf, duke of Kent[641].
-----
Footnote 641:
Ibid. No. 256.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 811.—A great gemót, “concilium pergrande,” was
held this year in London[642]. In the same year a great gemót was
collected at Wincelcumbe, Winchcomb in Gloucestershire, for the
dedication of Cénwulf’s new abbey there[643].
-----
Footnote 642:
Ibid. Nos. 196, 220.
Footnote 643:
Ibid. No. 197. Chron. MS. Wincelc. an. 811.
-----
CÉNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 815.—In this year a gemót assembled at
Cealchýð[644].
-----
Footnote 644:
Cod. Dipl. No. 208.
-----
BEORNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 824.—At a meeting held this year at
Clofeshoas, there attended a considerable number of laymen, as well as
prelates: the gemót however is called “pontificate et synodale
conciliabulum[645].” In 824 there was also a gemót of Wessex at Ockley
in Surrey. Ecgberht gave Meon to Wulfward his praefectus or geréfa. The
act is signed by four geréfan[646].
-----
Footnote 645:
Ibid. No. 218.
Footnote 646:
Ibid. No. 1031.
-----
BEORNWULF OF MERCIA, A.D. 825.—A gemót was held also at Clofeshoas in
825; this is called “sionoðlíc gemót”[647], and it is stated that there
were assembled the bishops, ealdormen, and all the weotan of the nation:
one act of this gemót[648] declares it to have consisted of the king,
bishops, abbots, dukes, “omniumque dignitatum optimates,
aecclesiasticarum vel saecularium personarum[649].” The acts of this
council are signed by no less than one hundred and twenty-one persons,
of whom ninety-five are clerical, embracing all ranks from bishops to
deacons. But one reason for this large attendance is, that as some cases
of disputed title were to be decided by the gemót, these monks and
clerks attended in order to make oath to the property in dispute.
-----
Footnote 647:
Ibid. No. 219.
Footnote 648:
Ibid. No. 220: see also No. 1034.
Footnote 649:
In some Saxon original, no doubt, “and eal dúgoð, ge cyriclíces ge
woroldlíces hádes.”
-----
ECGBERHT OF WESSEX, A.D. 826.—In 825 Ecgberht had taken the field
against the Welsh. He seems to have made various grants while _in
hoste_. These were afterwards confirmed and reduced to writing by a
gemót held in 826 at Southampton[650].
-----
Footnote 650:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 1035, 1036, 1038.
-----
ECGBERHT OF WESSEX and ÆÐELWULF OF KENT, A.D. 838.—In this year there
was a council at Kingston, under these kings, Ceólnóð the archbishop,
and the prelates of his province. Secular affairs of great importance
were settled on this occasion, and a regular treaty of peace and
alliance agreed between the Kentish clergy and the kings[651]. At first
this was signed only by Ceólnóð and the clergy; but for further
confirmation it was taken to king Æðelwulf at the royal vill of Wilton,
and there executed by the king, his dukes and thanes. Another document
exists in which the clergy of Winchester enter into similar engagements
with the kings[652].
-----
Footnote 651:
Ibid. No. 240.
Footnote 652:
Ibid. No. 1044.
-----
ÆÐELWULF OF WESSEX, A.D. 839.—The treaty mentioned in the last article
was read in a council of all the southern bishops, held at Astra[653].
-----
Footnote 653:
Ibid. No. 240.
-----
ÆÐELWULF OF WESSEX, ÆÐELSTÁN OF KENT, A.D. 844.—A gemót at Canterbury,
attended by the kings, the archbishop, the bishop elect of Rochester,
“cum principibus, ducibus, abbatibus, et cunctis generalis dignitatis
optimatibus[654].”
-----
Footnote 654:
Ibid. No. 256.
-----
ÆÐELWULF OF WESSEX, A.D. 851.—The very questionable authority of Ingulph
mentions a witena gemót this year at Cyningesbyrig[655].
-----
Footnote 655:
Cod. Dipl. No. 265.
-----
BURHHRED OF MERCIA, A.D. 853.—This year, the Chronicle says[656], a
formal application was made by the Mercian king Burhhred and his witan
for military aid, in order to the subjugation of the Northern Britons.
This seems to imply a regular meeting in Mercia.
-----
Footnote 656:
Chron. Sax. an. 853.
-----
ÆÐELWULF OF WESSEX, A.D. 855.—In this year there was a gemót at
Winchester[657].
-----
Footnote 657:
Cod. Dipl. No. 275.
-----
BURHHRED OF MERCIA, A.D. 868.—In this year the Mercian witan applied to
those of Wessex for aid against the Danes. We may conclude that gemóts
were held both in Mercia and Wessex[658].
-----
Footnote 658:
Chron. Sax. an. 868.
-----
A.D. 866-871.—We learn from king Ælfred himself that there was a witena
gemót at Swínbeorh in some year between these limits, wherein the
successions to lands, among the members of the royal family, were
settled, and placed under the guarantee of the witan[659].
-----
Footnote 659:
Cod. Dipl. No. 314.
-----
ÆLFRED OF WESSEX, A.D. 878.—In this year there was a gemót, very
probably at Wedmore[660], where the Dane Guðorm made his submission to
Ælfred, and where the articles of peace between the Saxons and Danes
were settled[661].
-----
Footnote 660:
Chron. Sax. an. 878. Flor. Wig. 878.
Footnote 661:
Thorpe, i. 152 _seq._
-----
ÆLFRED OF WESSEX, A.D. 880-885.—A gemót sat at Langandene between these
two years, and the affairs of Ælfred’s family were again considered. The
validity of king Æðelwulf’s will was admitted, and Ælfred’s settlement
of his lands guaranteed[659].
ÆÐELRED, DUKE OF MERCIA, A.D. 883.—In this year the witan of Mercia met
at Risborough, under Æðelred their duke[662]: an interesting
circumstance, inasmuch as it shows that the union with Wessex did not
abrogate the ancient rights, or interfere with the independent action of
the Mercian witan.
-----
Footnote 662:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1066.
-----
ÆÐELRED, DUKE OF MERCIA, A.D. 888.—This gemót was held at Saltwíc in
Worcestershire, to consult upon affairs both ecclesiastical and secular.
The witan assembled from far and near[663].
-----
Footnote 663:
Ibid. Nos. 327, 1068.
-----
ÆÐELRED, DUKE OF MERCIA, A.D. 896.—Another gemót of the Mercians was
held this year at Gloucester, whose interesting acts are yet
preserved[664].
-----
Footnote 664:
Ibid. No. 1073.
-----
ÆÐELRED, DUKE OF MERCIA, A.D. 878-899.—At a gemót held between these
years, and very likely at Worcester, Æðelred and Æðelflǽd commanded a
burh or fortification to be built for the people of that city, and the
cathedral to be enlarged. The endowments and privileges which are
granted by the instrument are extensive and instructive[665].
-----
Footnote 665:
Ibid. No. 1075.
-----
EÁDWEARD OF WESSEX, A.D. 901.—The death of Ælfred, and Eádweard’s
election probably caused an assembly of witan at Winchester in this
year[666], and it is likely that we still possess one of its acts[667].
This is the more probable because Æðelwald, Eádweard’s cousin, disputed
the succession, and not only seized upon the royal vill of Wimborne,
which he is said to have done without the consent of the king and his
witan, but broke into open rebellion, and after being acknowledged king
in Essex, joined the Danes in Northumberland, and perished in an
unsuccessful battle against his countrymen.
-----
Footnote 666:
Chron. Sax. an. 901.
Footnote 667:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1087.
-----
ÆÐELRED, DUKE OF MERCIA, A.D. 904.—In this year a Mercian gemót was
held, and duke Æðelfrið obtained permission to have new charters
written, his own having perished by fire[668]. And a gemót of the
Westsaxon witan was held at the king’s hunting-seat of Bicanleáh[669].
About the same period a gemót of Wessex was held at Exeter by
Eádweard[670].
-----
Footnote 668:
Cod. Dipl. No. 338.
Footnote 669:
Ibid. Nos. 1082, 1084.
Footnote 670:
Leg. Eádw. § 4. Thorpe, i. 162.
-----
EÁDWEARD OF WESSEX, A.D. 909.—A gemót of Wessex was held in 909: its
acts are signed by fifty of the witan[671].
-----
Footnote 671:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1091.
-----
EÁDWEARD OF WESSEX, A.D. 910.—A gemót was held in Wessex this year[672].
And there appears to have been another at Aylesford in Kent, in which
the witan gave judgment in the suit between Góda and queen Eádgyfu[673].
-----
Footnote 672:
Ibid. No. 1096.
Footnote 673:
Ibid. No. 499.
-----
EÁDWEARD OF WESSEX, A.D. 911.—In this year a gemót was probably held, in
which terms of peace were offered to the Danes in Northumberland[674].
But this may possibly be only the last-named gemót in 910, as we know
that Eádweard was in Kent in 911.
-----
Footnote 674:
Chron. Sax. an. 911.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 925 or 926.—About this date a gemót was held by Æðelstán
at Ham near Lewes, and the suit between Góda and Eádgyfu was again
decided by public authority[675].
-----
Footnote 675:
Cod. Dipl. No. 499.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 928.—A solemn gemót was held this year at Exeter[676].
-----
Footnote 676:
Ibid. No. 1101.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 930.—In this year the gemót met at Nottingham. It was
attended by three Welsh princes, the archbishops and sixteen bishops,
thirteen dukes, twelve thanes, twelve untitled persons, “et plures alii
milites quorum nomina in eadem carta inseruntur.” There are fifty-eight
signatures[677].
-----
Footnote 677:
Ibid. No. 352.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 931.—In this year several gemóts were held. First, one at
Luton in Bedfordshire, signed by 106 persons[678]. One at Worðig, “cum
tota plebis generalitate[679].” One at Colchester[680], and one at
Wellow in Wilts[681].
-----
Footnote 678:
Cod. Dipl. No. 353.
Footnote 679:
Ibid. No. 1103.
Footnote 680:
Ibid. No. 1102.
Footnote 681:
Ibid. No. 1105.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 932.—There was a gemót at Amesbury, said to be attended
by the dukes, bishops, abbots and “patriae procuratores”[682]. Also one
at Middleton, in which the same words occur: the signatures amount to
ninety, and comprise four Welsh princes, nineteen archbishops and
bishops, fifteen dukes, four abbots, and forty-seven ministri or
thanes[683].
-----
Footnote 682:
Ibid. No. 361.
Footnote 683:
Ibid. Nos. 1107, 1108.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 934.—A gemót was held in London on the seventh of
June[684]; but on the twenty-eighth of May there was a great meeting at
Winchester, “tota populi generalitate.” The total number of names is
ninety-two[685]. Again on the twelfth of September, the king was at
Buckingham, and there held a gemót, “tota magnatorum generalitate[686].”
-----
Footnote 684:
Ibid. No. 361.
Footnote 685:
Ibid. No. 364.
Footnote 686:
Ibid. No. 365.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 935.—On the twenty-first of September in this year there
was a gemót at Dorchester, “tota optimatum generalitate[687],”
-----
Footnote 687:
Ibid. Nos. 367, 1112.
-----
ÆÐELSTÁN, A.D. 937.—A gemót was held, “archiepiscopis, episcopis,
ducibus et principibus Anglorum insimul pro regni utilitate
coadunatis[688].”
-----
Footnote 688:
Ibid. No. 1113.
-----
An undated charter of Æðelstán[689] records a meeting of witan at
Abingdon: a grant was made to the abbey. The archbishop, bishops and
abbots present solemnly excommunicated any one who should disturb the
grant; to which all the people present exclaimed, “So be it! Amen.” “Et
dixit omnis populus qui ibi aderat, Fiat, Fiat. Amen.” “And cwæð ealle
ðæt folc ðe ðǽr embstód, Sy hit swá. Amen. Amen.”
-----
Footnote 689:
Ibid. No. 1129.
-----
Gemóts of Æðelstán’s, the dates of which are uncertain, were held at
Witlanburh[690], Greátanleá[691], Fevershám[692], Thundersfield[693],
and Exeter[694].
-----
Footnote 690:
Thorpe, i. 240.
Footnote 691:
Ibid. i. 194.
Footnote 692:
Thorpe, i. 216.
Footnote 693:
Ibid. i. 217.
Footnote 694:
Ibid. i. 220. This however may have been in 926, when Æðelstán was in
that city.
-----
EÁDMUND, before A.D. 946.—This prince held at least two gemóts, one at
London, one at Culintún, but in what years is uncertain[695].
-----
Footnote 695:
Leg. Eádm. Thorpe, i. 244, 252.
-----
EÁDRED, A.D. 946.—This year there was a gemót at Kingston, and king
Eádred was crowned[696].
-----
Footnote 696:
Cod. Dipl. No. 411.
-----
EÁDRED, A.D. 947.—In this year there was at least one witena gemót, in
which the terms of peace with the Northumbrian witan were arranged[697].
There were others also in Mercia, and I have little doubt that all the
charters bearing that date in the Codex Diplomaticus are really acts of
such meetings.
-----
Footnote 697:
Chron. Sax. an. 947.
-----
EÁDRED, A.D. 948.—In this year the witan of Northumberland having
elected a king Eirik, Eádred marched into their country and plundered
it; upon which they again made a formal submission to him[698].
-----
Footnote 698:
Chron. Sax. an. 948.
-----
Between 960-963.—In one of these years a gemót was held, but the place
is unknown, and Eádgyfu ultimately succeeded in putting an end to the
pretensions of Goda’s family[699].
-----
Footnote 699:
Cod. Dipl. No. 499.
-----
EÁDGÁR, A.D. 966.—A gemót in London[700].
-----
Footnote 700:
Ibid. No. 528.
-----
EÁDGÁR, A.D. 968.—A gemót was held at some place unknown[701].
-----
Footnote 701:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 1265, 1266.
-----
EÁDGÁR, A.D. 973.—A great gemót was held in St. Paul’s church,
London[702].
-----
Footnote 702:
Ibid. No. 580.
-----
EÁDGÁR, A.D. 977.—After Easter (April 8th), there was held a great
gemót, “ðæt mycele gemót,” at Kirtlington in Oxfordshire[703].
-----
Footnote 703:
Chron. Sax. an. 977.
-----
EÁDGÁR, A.D. 978.—In this year was held the celebrated gemót at Calne in
Wiltshire, when the floor gave way and precipitated the witan to the
ground[704]. There was another gemót at Ceodre, now Cheddar in
Somersetshire[705].
-----
Footnote 704:
Ibid. an. 978.
Footnote 705:
Cod. Dipl. No. 598.
-----
In addition to these Eádgár held at least two gemóts, one at Andover in
Hants, one at a place called Wihtbordesstán, which we cannot now
identify. In both of these meetings laws were passed[706].
-----
Footnote 706:
Thorpe, i. 272.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 979.—A gemót was held at Kingston for the coronation of
Æðelred[707].
-----
Footnote 707:
Chron. Sax. an. 979.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 992.—In this year there were probably several witena
gemóts for the prosecution of the Danish war[708].
-----
Footnote 708:
Ibid. an. 992.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 993.—In this year there was at least one gemót at
Winchester[709].
-----
Footnote 709:
Cod. Dipl. No. 684.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 994.—A witena gemót met this year at Andover[710].
-----
Footnote 710:
Chron. Sax. an. 994. Ll. Æðelr. 11. Thorpe, i. 284.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 995.—A gemót at Ambresbyrig, now Amesbury, where Ælfríc
was elected archbishop of Canterbury in the place of Sigeríc[711]. There
seems to have been another meeting in the same year, one of whose acts
we still possess[712].
-----
Footnote 711:
Chron. Sax. an. 995.
Footnote 712:
Cod. Dipl. No. 692.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 996.—In this year a gemót was held at Cealchýð[713].
Footnote 713:
Ibid. No. 696.
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 997.—This year a gemót was held in the palace at Calne:
“collecta haud minima sapientium multitudine, in aula villae regiae quae
nuncupative a populis Et Calnæ vocitatur[714].” A few days later we find
the gemót assembled at Waneting or Wantage; and here they promulgated
laws which we yet possess[715]. There is a charter also, passed at this
gemót[716]. A previous gemót of uncertain year had been held at
Brómdún[717], and another at Woodstock[718].
-----
Footnote 714:
Ibid. No. 698.
Footnote 715:
Thorpe, i. 292.
Footnote 716:
Cod. Dipl. No. 698.
Footnote 717:
Thorpe, i. 280, 294.
Footnote 718:
Ibid. i. 280.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 998.—A gemót was held this year in London[719]; and
another apparently at Andover[720], where conditions of peace were
ratified with Anláf or Olaf Tryggvason[721].
-----
Footnote 719:
Cod. Dipl. No. 702.
Footnote 720:
Chron. Sax. an. 998.
Footnote 721:
Thorpe, i. 284.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 999.—At least one gemót was held this year, to concert
measures of defence against the Danes[722].
-----
Footnote 722:
Chron. Sax. an. 999.
-----
A.D. 996-1001.—Between these years there was a gemót at Cócham, now
Cookham in Berks, which was attended by a large assemblage of thanes
from Wessex and Mercia, both of Saxon and Danish descent[723].
-----
Footnote 723:
Cod. Dipl. No. 704.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1002.—In this year the witan met and paid tribute to the
Danes[724]. We have still an evident act of such a gemót in this
year[725].
-----
Footnote 724:
Chron. Sax. an. 1002
Footnote 725:
Cod. Dipl. No. 707.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1004.—In this year a meeting of the Eastanglian witan,
under earl Ulfcytel, took place. From the description I do not think it
could have been an ordinary scírgemót. It shows, at any rate, that the
witan were resident in the shires, and not permanently attached to the
royal person or household[726].
-----
Footnote 726:
Chron. Sax. an. 1004.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1006.—Another gemót was held this year, somewhere in
Shropshire, for the melancholy and shameful purpose of buying peace from
the Danes[727].
-----
Footnote 727:
Ibid. an. 1006.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1008.—A gemót was held, one of whose acts we have
still[728].
-----
Footnote 728:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1305.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1009.—In this year we are told that the king and his
heáhwitan met; but the place is unknown[729].
-----
Footnote 729:
Chron. Sax. an. 1009.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1010.—In this year a gemót was proclaimed, to concert
measures of defence against the Danes[730]. “Ðonne beád man eallan witan
tó cynge, and man sceólde ðonne rǽdan hú man ðisne eard werian sceólde.”
-----
Footnote 730:
Chron. Sax. an. 1010.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1011.—A gemót was again held for the shameful purpose of
buying peace[731].
-----
Footnote 731:
Ibid. an. 1011.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1012.—At Easter (April 13th) there was a great meeting at
London, and tribute was paid to the Danes[732].
-----
Footnote 732:
Ibid. an. 1012.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1014.—In this year was holden that important gemót,
perhaps we might say convention, which has been mentioned in the text;
when the witan, upon the death of Swegen, consented again to receive
Æðelred as king, upon promises of amendment[733].
-----
Footnote 733:
Ibid. an. 1014.
-----
ÆÐELRED, A.D. 1015.—In this year was the great gemót of Oxford, “ðæt
mycel gemót,” and Sigeferð and Morcar the powerful earls of the north
were slain[734].
-----
Footnote 734:
Chron. Sax. an. 1015.
-----
It is uncertain in what years we must place the promulgation of
Æðelred’s laws[735], at Enham, and Haba[736]; and others without date or
place.
-----
Footnote 735:
Thorpe, i. 314.
Footnote 736:
Thorpe, i. 366.
-----
EÁDMUND ÍRENSÍDA, A.D. 1016.—In this year there must have been various
meetings of the witan, if tumultuous and armed assemblages can claim the
name of witena gemóts at all. The witan in London elected Eádmund king;
and there was a meeting at Olney, near Deerhurst, where the kingdom was
partitioned[737].
-----
Footnote 737:
Chron. Sax. an. 1016.
-----
A.D. 1016-1020.—Probably between these years was the great gemót at
Winchester, in which Cnut promulgated his laws[738].
-----
Footnote 738:
Thorpe, i. 358.
-----
CNUT, A.D. 1020.—In this year was a great gemót at Cirencester[739].
-----
Footnote 739:
Chron. Sax. an. 1020.
-----
HARALD HARANFOT, A.D. 1036.—Upon the death of Cnut, there was a gemót at
Oxford, and Harald was elected king[740].
-----
Footnote 740:
Chron. Sax. an. 1036.
-----
HARDACNUT, A.D. 1042.—In this year there was probably a gemót at
Sutton[741]. And another on Hardacnut’s death, when all the people chose
Eádweard the Confessor to be king[742].
-----
Footnote 741:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 765, 766.
Footnote 742:
Chron. Sax. an. 1042. At Gillingham. Will. Malm. i. 332, § 197. “Nihil
erat quod Edwardus pro necessitate temporis non polliceretur, ita,
utrinque fide data, quicquid petebatur sacramento firmavit. Nec mora
Gillingcham congregato concilio, rationibus suis explicitis, regem
effecit (Godwinus) hominio palam omnibus dato: homo affectati leporis,
et ingenue gentilitia lingua eloquens, mirus dicere, mirus populo
persuadere quae placerent. Quidam auctoritatem eius secuti, quidam
muneribus flexi, quidam etiam debitum Edwardi amplexi.”
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1043.—A witena gemót was held at Winchester, April 3rd,
and Eádweard was crowned[743].
-----
Footnote 743:
Chron. Sax. an. 1043.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1044.—There was a gemót, “generale concilium,” in London;
the only business recorded is the election of Manni, abbot of
Evesham[744]; but there is a charter[745].
-----
Footnote 744:
Flor. Wig. an. 1044.
Footnote 745:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 776, 777.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1045.—There seems to have been a gemót this year[746].
-----
Footnote 746:
Ibid. Nos. 779, 783.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1046.—A gemót, the place of which is unknown[747].
-----
Footnote 747:
Ibid. No. 786.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1047.—On the 10th of March this year there was “mycel
gemót” in London[748].
-----
Footnote 748:
Chron. Sax. an. 1047.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1048.—A gemót sat on the 8th of September at
Gloucester[749]; and on the 21st of September, another met in London,
and outlawed the family of earl Godwine.
-----
Footnote 749:
Chron. Sax. an. 1048.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1050.—There was a great gemót in London[750].
-----
Footnote 750:
Ibid. an. 1050.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1052, 1053.—A gemót, place unknown[751].
-----
Footnote 751:
Cod. Dipl. No. 799.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1055.—A gemót in London[752].
-----
Footnote 752:
Chron. Sax. an. 1055.
-----
EÁDWEARD, A.D. 1065.—There was a great gemót at Northampton[753],
Another was held at Oxford on the 28th of October[753], and lastly at
Christmas in London[753]. At this Eádweard dedicated Westminster Abbey,
and dying on the 5th of January, 1066, the assembled witan elected
Harald king.
-----
Footnote 753:
Ibid. an. 1065.
-----
Having now completed this list, which must be confessed to be but an
imperfect one, I do not scruple to express my belief that every charter
in the Codex Diplomaticus, which is not merely a private will or private
settlement, is the genuine act of some witena gemót: and that we thus
possess a long and interesting series of records, enabling us to follow
the action of the Saxon Parliaments from the very cradle of our
monarchy.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TOWNS.
We have now arrived at that point of our enquiry at which it behoves us
to bestow our attention upon the origin and growth of towns among the
Anglosaxons; and to this end we shall find it expedient to carry our
researches to a still earlier period, and investigate, though in a
slight degree, the condition of their British and Roman predecessors in
this respect. At first sight it would seem natural to suppose that where
a race had long possessed the outward means and form of civilization,—a
race among whom great military and civil establishments had been
founded, who had clustered round provincial cities, the seats of a
powerful government, and whose ports and harbours had been the scenes of
active commerce,—there need be little question as to the origin of towns
and cities among those who conquered and dispossessed them. It might be
imagined that the later comers would have nothing more to do than seize
upon the seats from which they had expelled their predecessors, and
apply to their own uses the established instruments of convenience, of
wealth or safety. Further enquiry however proves that this induction
would be erroneous, and that the Saxons did not settle in the Roman
towns. The reason of this is not difficult to assign: a city is the
result of a system of cultivation, and it is of no use whatever to a
race whose system differs entirely from that of the race by whom it was
founded. The Curia and the temple, the theatre and thermae, house joined
to house and surrounded by a dense quadrangular wall, crowding into a
defined and narrow space the elements of civilization, are
unintelligible to him whose whole desire centres in the undisturbed
enjoyment of his éðel, and unlimited command of the mark. The buildings
of a centralized society are as little calculated for his use as their
habits and institutions: as well might it have been proposed to him to
substitute the jurisdiction of the _praetor urbanus_ for the national
tribunal of the folcmót. The spirit of life is totally different: as
different are all the social institutions, and all the details which
arise from these and tend to confirm and perpetuate them.
Nevertheless we cannot doubt that the existence of the British and Roman
cities did materially influence the mode and nature of the German
settlements; and without some slight sketch of the growth and
development of the former, we shall find it impossible to form a clear
notion of the conditions under which the Anglosaxon polity was formed.
If we may implicitly trust the report of Caesar, a British city in his
time differed widely from what we understand by that term. A spot
difficult of access from the trees which filled it, surrounded with a
rampart and a ditch, and which offered a refuge from the sudden
incursions of an enemy, could be dignified by the name of an _oppidum_,
and form the metropolis of Cassivelaunus[754]. Such also among the
Slavonians were the _vici_, encircled by an _abbatis_ of timber, or at
most a paling, proper to repel not only an unexpected attack, but even
capable of resisting for a time the onset of practised forces: such in
our own time have been found the stockades of the Burmese, and the Pah
of the New Zealander: and if our skilful engineers have experienced no
contemptible resistance, and the lives of many brave and disciplined men
have been sacrificed in their reduction, we may admit that even the
_oppida_ of Cassivelaunus, or Caratac or Galgacus, might, as fortresses,
have serious claims to the attention of a Roman commander. But such an
_oppidum_ is no town or city in the sense in which those words are
contemplated throughout this chapter: by a town I certainly intend a
place enclosed in some manner, and even fortified: but much more those
who dwell together in such a place, and the means by which they either
rule themselves, or are ruled. I mean a metaphysical as well as a
physical unit,—not exclusively what was a collection of dwellings or a
fortification, but a centre of trade and manufacture and civilization.
-----
Footnote 754:
Bell. Gall. v. 21. Caesar stormed it, and had therefore good means of
knowing what it was. His further information was probably derived from
his British ally Comius. Strabo gives a very similar account: πόλεις
δ’ αὐτων εἰσιν οἱ δρυμοι’· περιφράξαντες γὰρ δένδρεσι καταβεβλημένοις
εὐρυχωρῆ κύκλον καλυβοποιοῦνται, καὶ τὰ βοσκήματα κατκσταθμέυουσιν, οὐ
πρὸς πολὺν χρόνον. lib. iv.
-----
If the Romans found none such, at least they left them, in every part of
Britain. The record of their gradual and successive advance shows that,
partly with a politic view of securing their conquests, partly with the
necessary aim of conciliating their soldiery, they did establish
numerous _municipia_ and _coloniae_ here, as well as military stations
which in time became the nuclei of towns.
It is however scarcely possible that Caesar and Strabo can be strictly
accurate in their reports, or that there were from the first only such
towns in Britain as these authors have described. It is not consonant to
experience that a thickly peopled and peaceful country[755] should long
be without cities. A commercial people[756] always have some settled
stations for the collection and interchange of commodities, and fixed
establishments for the regulation of trade. Caesar himself tells us that
the buildings of the Britons were very numerous, and that they bore a
resemblance to those of the Gauls[757], whose cities were assuredly
considerable. Moreover a race so conversant with the management of
horses as to use armed chariots for artillery, are not likely to have
been without an extensive system of roads, and where there are roads,
towns will not long be wanting. Hence when, less than eighty years after
the return of the Romans to Britain, and scarcely forty after the
complete subjugation of the island by Agricola, Ptolemy tells us of at
least fifty-six cities in existence here[758], we may reasonably
conclude that they were not all due to the efforts of Roman
civilization.
Footnote 755:
“Hominum est infinita multitudo.” Bell. Gall. v. 12. Εἶναι δὲ καὶ
πολυάνθρωπον τὴν νῆσον ... βασιλεῖς τε καὶ δυνάστας πολλοὺς ἔχειν, καὶ
πρὸς ἀλλήλους κατὰ τὸ πλεῖστον εἰρηνικῶς διακεῖσθαι. Diodor. Sicul. v.
21.
Footnote 756:
Οὐενέτοι ... χρώμενοι τῷ ἐμπορίῳ. Strabo, lib. iv.
Footnote 757:
“Creberrima aedificia, fere Gallicis consimilia.” Bell. Gall. v. 12.
Footnote 758:
Ptolemy at the commencement of the second century (_i. e._ about A.D.
120) mentions the following πόλεις, which surely are _towns_:—
District. Towns. │ District. Towns.
Novantae Loucopibia. │Parisi Petuaria.
Rhetigonium. │Ordovices Mediolanium.
Selgovae Carbantorigum. │ Brannogenium.
Uxelum. │Cornabii Deuana.
Corda. │ Viroconium.
Trimontium. │Coritavi Lindum.
Damnii Colania. │ Rhage.
Vanduara. │Catyeuchlani Salenae.
Coria. │ Urolanium.
Alauna. │Simeni Venta.
Lindum. │Trinoantes Camudolanum.
Victoria. │Demetae Luentinium.
Otadeni Curia. │ Maridunum.
Bremenium. │Silures Bullaeum.
Vacomagi Banatia. │Dobuni Corinium.
Tameia. │Atrebatii Nalkua.
The Winged Camp. │Cantii Londinium.
Tuesis. │ Darvenum.
Venicontes Orrhea. │ Rhutupiae.
Texali Devana. │Rhegni Naeomagus.
Brigantes Epeiacum. │Belgae Ischalis.
Vinnovium. │ The Hot Springs.
Caturhactonium. │ Venta.
Calatum. │Durotriges Dunium.
Isurium. │Dumnonii Voliba.
Rhigodunum. │ Uxela.
Olicana. │ Tamare.
Eboracum. │ Isca.
Camunlodunum. │
-----
Caesar says indeed nothing of London, yet it is difficult to believe
that this was an unimportant place, even in his day. It was long the
principal town of the Cantii, whom the Roman general describes as the
most polished of the inhabitants of Britain; and as we know that there
was an active commercial intercourse between the eastern coast of
England and Gaul, it is at least probable that a station, upon a great
river at a safe yet easy distance from the sea, was not unknown to the
foreign merchants who traded to our shores[759]. One hundred and sixteen
years later it could be described as a city famous in a high degree for
the resort of merchants and for traffic[760]: but of these years one
hundred had been spent in peace and in the natural development of their
resources by the Britons, undisturbed by Roman ambition; and we have
therefore ample right to infer that from the very first Cair Lunden had
been a place of great commercial importance. The Romans on their return
found and kept it so, although they did not establish a colonia there.
The first place which received this title with all its corresponding
advantages was Camelodunum, probably the British Cair Colun, now
Colchester in Essex[761].
-----
Footnote 759:
It is clear that Caesar was not greatly harassed in his march towards
the ford of the Thames near Chertsey; and if, as is probable, his
advance disarmed the Cantii generally, or compelled the more warlike
of their body to retire upon the force of Cassivelaunus, concentrated
on the left bank of the river, we can understand what would otherwise
seem a very dangerous movement,—a march into Surrey, leaving London
unoccupied on the right flank. Thus it seems to me that the fact of
Caesar’s not noticing the city may be more readily explained by its
not lying within the scope of his manœuvres, than by its not
existing in his time. And indeed it is probable that just here some
portion of his memoirs has been lost: for in the nineteenth chapter of
the fifth book, he distinctly says: “Cassivelaunus, _ut supra
demonstravimus_, omni deposita spe contentionis,” etc.; but nothing
now remains in what we possess, to which these words can possibly be
referred. Caesar’s Commentaries were the private literary occupation
of the great soldier in peaceful times, and we cannot attribute this
contradiction in his finished work to carelessness.
Footnote 760:
“At Suetonius mira constantia medios inter hostes Londinium perrexit,
cognomento quidem coloniae non insigne, sed copia negotiatorum et
commeatuum maxime celebre.” Tacit. Ann. xiv. 33. “Not a colonia,”
seems to me equivalent to saying, a British city.—Twenty years after
the return of the Romans to Britain, _seventy thousand_ citizens and
allies perished during Boadicea’s rebellion in London, Verulam and
Colchester. (Ibid.)
Footnote 761:
This was long supposed to be Maldon, but it seems difficult to resist
Mannert’s reasoning in favour of Colchester. See Geograph. der Griech.
u. Röm. p. 157.
-----
As the settlement of the nations, and their reduction under a
centralizing system, followed the victories of the legions, municipia
and coloniae arose in every province, the seats of garrisons and the
residences of military and civil governors: while as civilization
extended, the Britons themselves, adopting the manners and following the
example of their masters, multiplied the number of towns upon all the
great lines of internal communication. It is difficult now to give from
Roman authorities only a complete list of these towns; many names which
we find in the _itineraria_ and similar documents, being merely
post-stations or points where subordinate provincial authorities were
located; but the names of fifty-six towns have been already quoted from
Ptolemy, and even tradition may be of some service to us on this
subject[762]. Nennius sums up with patriotic pride the names of
thirty-four principal cities which adorned Britain under his
forefathers, and many of these we can yet identify: amongst them are
London, Bristol, Canterbury, Colchester, Cirencester, Chichester,
Gloucester, Worcester, Wroxeter, York, Silchester, Lincoln, Leicester,
Doncaster, Caermarthen, Carnarvon, Winchester, Porchester, Grantchester,
Norwich, Carlisle, Chester, Caerleon on Usk, Manchester and
Dorchester[763]. To these from other sources we may add Sandwich, Dover,
Rochester, Nottingham, Exeter, Bath, Bedford, Aylesbury and St. Alban’s.
-----
Footnote 762:
In the third century Marcianus reckons, unfortunately without naming
them, fifty-nine celebrated cities in Britain: ἔχει δὲ ἐν αὐτῇ ἔθνη
λγ, πόλεις ἐπισήμους νθ, ποτάμους ἐπισήμους μ, ἀκρωτήρια ἐπίσημα ιδ,
χερσόνησον ἐπίσημον ἕνα, κόλπους ἐπισήμους ε, λίμενας ἐπισήμους γ.
Marcian. Heracleot. lib. i. Nor will this surprise us when we bear in
mind that about this period the Britons enjoyed such a reputation for
building as to find employment in Gaul. “Civitas Aeduorum ...
plurimos, quibus illae provinciae redundabant, accepit artifices,”
etc. Eumen. Const. Paneg. c. 21.
Footnote 763:
Henry of Huntingdon copies Nennius and aids in the identification.
Asser adds to the list Nottingham, in British Tinguobauc, and Cair
Wisc now Exeter. The Saxon Chronicle records Anderida, Bath, Bedford,
Leighton, Aylesbury, Bensington and Eynesham. Among the places
unquestionably Roman may be named Londinium, Verulamium, Colonia,
Glevum (Gloucester), Venta Belgarum (Winchester), Venta Icenorum
(Norwich), Venta Silurum (Cair Gwint), Durocornovium or Corinium
(Cirencester), Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), Eboracum (York), Uxella
(Exeter), Aquæ Solis (Bath), Durnovaria (Dorchester), Regnum
(Chichester), Durocovernum (Canterbury), Uriconium (Wroxeter) and
Lindum (Lincoln).
-----
Whatever the origin of these towns may have been, it is easy to show
that many of them comprised a Roman population: the very walls by which
some of them are still surrounded, offer conclusive evidence of this;
while in the neighbourhood of others, coins and inscriptions, the ruins
of theatres, villas, baths, and other public or private buildings,
attest either the skill and luxury of the conquerors, or the aptness to
imitate of the conquered[764]. But a much more important question
arises; viz. how many of them were ruled freely, like the cities of the
old country, by a municipal body constituted in the ancient form: what
provision, in short, the Romans made or permitted for the education of
their British subjects in the manly career of citizenship and the
dignity of self-government[765].
-----
Footnote 764:
The walls of Chichester still offer an admirable example in very
perfect condition. The remains at Lincoln and Old Verulam enable us to
trace the ancient sites with precision, and in the immediate
neighbourhood of the latter town the foundations of a large theatre
are yet preserved. The plough still brings to light the remains of
Roman villas and the details of Roman cultivation throughout the
valley of the Severn. It is impossible here to enumerate all the
places where the discovery of coins, inscriptions, works of art and
utility or ruins of buildings attest a continued occupation of the
site and a peaceful settlement. Many archæological works, the result
of modern industry, may be beneficially consulted; and among these I
would call particular attention to the Map of Roman Yorkshire,
published by Mr. Newton, with the approbation of the Archæological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Footnote 765:
The following lines contain a very slight sketch of the municipal
institutions of a Roman city. It is not necessary to burthen the
reader’s attention with the deeper details of this special subject. A
general reference may be given to Savigny’s Geschichte des Römischen
Rechts, the leading authority on all such points.
-----
The constitution of a provincial city of the empire, in the days when
the republic still possessed virtue and principle, was of this
description, at all events from the period of the Social, Marsic or
Italian war, when the cities of Italy wrested isopolity, or at least
isotely, from Rome. The state consisted of the whole body of the
citizens, without distinction, having a general voice in the management
of their own internal affairs. The administrative functions however
resided in a privileged class of those citizens, commonly called
_Curiales_, _Decuriones_, _Ordo Decurionum_ (or sometimes _Ordo_ alone),
and occasionally _Senatus_. They were in fact to the whole body of the
citizens what the Senatus under the Emperors was to the citizens of
Rome[766], and their rights and privileges seem in general to have
varied very much as did those of the higher body. They were hereditary,
but, when occasion demanded an increase of their numbers, self-elected.
Out of this college of Decuriones the _Magistratus_ or supreme executive
government proceeded. In the better days I believe these were always
freely chosen for one year, by the whole community, but exclusively from
among the members of the Ordo: and after Tiberius at Rome transferred
the elections from the Comitia to the Senate, the Decuriones in the
provinces may have become the sole electors, as they were the only
persons capable of being elected. The Magistratus had the supreme
jurisdiction, and were the completion of the communal system: they bore
different names in different cities, but usually those of Duumviri or
Quatuorviri, from their number. Sometimes, but very rarely, they were
named Consules. In fact the general outline of this constitution
resembled as much as possible that of Rome itself, which was only the
head of a confederation embracing all the cities of Italy.
-----
Footnote 766:
If we adopt an old legal phrase, the Decuriones were _cives optimo
iure_, or full burghers; the rest of the citizens were _non optimo
iure_, not full burghers, not having a share in the advantages
possessed by the members of the corporation.
-----
A somewhat similar arrangement was introduced into the cities of the
various countries which, under the name of provinces, were brought
within the influence of the Roman power: only that in these the communal
organization was throughout subordinated to the regulation and control
of the Consularis, the Legatus, Procurator, and other officers military
and fiscal, who administered the affairs of the province. A principal
point of distinction between the free communities of Italy and the
dependent provincial corporations lay in this: that in the latter, the
magistrates were indeed elected by the Ordo or Curia, but upon the
nomination of the Roman governor: their jurisdiction in suits was
consequently very limited, while political functions were for the most
part confined to the civil and military officers of the empire.
As long as the condition of the imperial city itself was tolerably easy,
and the provinces had not yet been flooded with the vice, corruption and
misery which called for and rendered possible the victories of the
barbarians, the condition of the provincial decurions was on the whole
one of honour and advantage. They formed a kind of nobility, a class
distinguished from their fellow-citizens by a certain rank and
privileges, as they were assuredly also distinguished from them by
superior wealth: they resembled in fact an aristocracy of county
families at this day, with its exclusive possession of the magistrature
and other local advantages. On the other hand they were responsible for
the public dues, the levies, the annona or victualling of forces, the
_tributum_ or raising of the assessed taxes; and thus they were rendered
immediately subject to the exactions of the fiscal authorities, and
especially exposed to the caprice and illegal demands of the Roman
officials[767]—a class universally infamous for tyrannical extortion in
the provinces: and in yet later times, when the land itself frequently
became deserted, through the burthen of taxation and exaction[768], they
were compelled to undertake the cultivation of the relinquished estates,
that the fiscus might be no loser. Gradually as the bond which held the
fragments of the empire together was loosened, and as limb after limb
dropped away from the mouldering colossus, the condition of a Decurion
became so oppressive that it was found necessary to press citizens by
force into the office: some committed suicide, others expatriated
themselves, in order to escape it. The state was obliged to forbid by
law the sale of property for the purpose of avoiding it; freemen went
into the ranks, or subjected themselves to voluntary servitude, as a
preferable alternative; nay at length vagabonds, people of bad
character, even malefactors, were literally condemned to it[769]. This
tends perhaps more than any fact to prove the gradual ruin of the
municipal as well as the social fabric, and the miserable condition of
the provinces under the later emperors.
-----
Footnote 767:
Tacitus gives us an insight into some of the gratuitous insults and
vexations inflicted upon the British provincials, while he describes
the reforms introduced by Agricola into these branches of the public
service. “Ceterum animorum provinciae prudens, simulque doctus per
aliena experimenta, parum profici armis, si iniuriae sequerentur,
causas bellorum statuit excidere.... Frumenti et tributorum exactionem
aequalitate munerum mollire, circumcisis, quae in quaestum reperta,
ipso tributo gravius tolerabantur: namque per ludibrium adsidere
clausis horreis, et emere ultro frumenta, ac vendere pretio
cogebantur: devortia itinerum et longinquitas regionum indicebatur, ut
civitates a proximis hybernis in remota et avia deferrent, donec, quod
omnibus in promtu erat, paucis lucrosum fieret.” Tac. Agric. xix. The
same grave historian attributes the fierce insurrection under Boadicea
to the tyrannous conduct of the Legati and Procuratores of the
province, and the insolent conduct of their subordinates. “Britanni
agitare inter se mala servitutis, conferre iniurias et interpretando
accendere: ‘nihil profici patientia, nisi ut graviora, tanquam ex
facili tolerantibus, imperentur: singulos sibi olim reges fuisse, nunc
binos imponi: e quibus Legatus in sanguinem, Procurator in bona
saeviret. Aeque discordiam Praepositorum, aeque concordiam subiectis
exitiosam, alterius manus, centuriones alterius, vim et contumelias
miscere. Nihil iam cupiditati, nihil libidini exceptum.” Tac. Agric.
xv. It is obviously with reference to the same facts that he describes
the Britons as peaceable and well disposed to discharge the duties
laid upon them, if they are only spared insult. Tac. Agric. xiii.
Xiphilinus, who though a late writer is valuable inasmuch as he
represents Dio Cassius, describes some of the intolerable atrocities
which drove the Iceni into rebellion, destroyed Camelodunum and
Verulamium, and led in those cities and in London to the slaughter of
nearly seventy thousand citizens and allies. Deep as was the wrong
done to the family of Prasutagus, he is no doubt right in attributing
the general exasperation mainly to the confiscation of the lands which
Claudius Caesar had granted to the chiefs, and which the procurator
Catus Decianus attempted to call in. Πρόφασις δὲ τοῦ πολέμου ἑγένετο ἡ
δήμευσις τῶν χρημάτων (publicatio bonorum), ἅ Κλαύδιος τοῖς πρώτοις
αὐτῶν ἐδεδώκει· καὶ ἔδει καὶ ἐκεῖνα, ὥς γε Δεκιανὸς Κάτος ὁ τῆς νήσου
ἐπιτροπεύων ἔλεγεν, ἀναπόμπιμα γενέσθαι. Boadicea is made to declare
that they were charged with a poll-tax, so severely exacted that an
account was required even of the dead: οὐδὲ γὰρ τὸ τελευτῆσαι παρ’
αὐτοῖς ἀζήμιόν ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ἴστε ὅσον καὶ ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν τελεοῦμεν·
παρὰ μὲν γὰρ τοῖς ἄλλοις ανθρώποις καὶ τοὺς δουλεύοντας τισιν ὁ
θάνατος ἐλευθεροῖ, Ῥωμαίοις δὲ δὴ μόνοις καὶ οἱ νεκροὶ ζῶσι πρὸς τὰ
λήμματα. These accusations put into the mouths of the personages
themselves, must not be taken to be exaggerated statements without
foundation: they are the confessions of the historians, which
sometimes perhaps they lacked courage to make in another form. The
sudden and violent calling in of large sums which Seneca had forced
upon the British chiefs in expectation of enormous interest, was
another cause of the war: διά τε οὖν τοῦτο, καὶ ὅτι ὁ Σενέκας χιλίας
σφίσι μυριάδας ἄκουσιν ἐπὶ χρησταῖς ἐλπίσι τόκων δανείσας, ἔπειτ’
ἀθρόας τε ἅμα αὐτὰς καὶ βιαίως εἰσέπρασσεν. The Roman mortgages in
Britain were enormous, yet easily explained. The procurator made an
extravagant demand: the native state could not pay it; but the
procurator had a Roman friend who would advance it upon good security,
etc. Similar things have taken place in _Zemindaries_ of later date
than the British. For the references above see Joan. Xiphil. Epitome
Dionis, _Nero_ vi.
Footnote 768:
This not only appears from the digests, but from numerous merely
incidental notices in the authors of the time. The population were
crowded into cities, and the country was deserted. This was not the
result of a healthy manufacturing or commercial movement, but of a
state of universal distraction and insecurity. Had the cultivation of
the land ceased through a prudent calculation of political economy, we
should not have heard of compulsory tillage.
Footnote 769:
Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 23 _seq._
-----
However, in the better days of Vespasian, Trajan and the Antonines we
are not to look for such a state of society; and in the provinces, the
Ordo, though exposed to many harsh and painful conditions, yet held a
position of comparative dignity and influence. I have compared them to a
county aristocracy, but there is perhaps a nearer parallel, for in the
Roman empire it is difficult to distinguish the county from the town.
The position of the Decurions can hardly be made clearer than by a
reference to the Select (that is self-elected) Vestries of our great
metropolitan parishes before the passing of Sir John Hobhouse’s Acts; or
to the town-councillors and aldermen of our country-towns, before the
enactment of the Municipal Corporations’ Bill. Whoso remembers these
bodies with their churchwardens on the one hand, their mayors,
borough-reeves and aldermen on the other,—their exclusive jurisdiction
as a magistracy,—their exclusive possession of corporation property,
tolls, rents and other sources of wealth,—their private rights in the
common land, held by themselves or delegated to their _clients_,—their
custody of the public buildings, and sole management of civic or
charitable funds,—their patronage as trustees of public
institutions,—their franchise as electors,—their close family alliances,
and the methods by which they contrived to recruit their diminished
numbers, till they became a very aristocracy among a people of
commoners[770],—whoso, I say, considers these phænomena of our own day,
need have little difficulty not only in understanding the condition of a
Decurion in the better days of the Roman empire: but, if he will cast
his thought back into earlier ages, he may find in them no little
illustration of the nature, rights and policy of the Patriciate, under
the Republic.
-----
Footnote 770:
Cives optimo iure, optimates, senatus, patricii, rachinburgi, boni
homines,—these are all more or less equivalent terms.
-----
Other cities of a less favoured description were governed directly as
præfectures, by an officer sent from Rome, who centred in himself all
the higher branches of administration: in these cities the functions of
the Ordo were greatly curtailed; little was left them but to attend to
the police of the town and markets, the determination of trifling civil
suits, the survey of roads or buildings; and, in conjunction with the
heads of the guilds (“collegia opificum”) the vain and mischievous
attempt to regulate wages and prices. On the other hand a few cities had
what was called the Jus Italicum, or right to form a free corporation,
in every respect identical with those of the cities of Italy, that is to
say identical in plan with that of Rome itself. The provinces of the
Roman empire must have contained many of these privileged states which
thus enjoyed a valuable pre-eminence over their neighbours, the reward
of public services: but history has been sparing of their names, and in
western Europe, three only, Cologne, Vienne and Lyons are particularly
mentioned[771]. In all the cities which had not this privilege, after
the close of the fourth century we find a particular officer called the
Defensor, who was not to be one of the curiales, who was to be elected
by the whole body of the citizens and not by the curiales only, and who
must therefore be looked upon in a great degree as the representative of
the popular against the aristocratic element, as the support of the
Cives against the Senatus and Duumvir. In the cities of Gaul, the
bishops for the most part occupied this position, which necessarily led
to results of the highest importance, from the peculiar relation in
which it placed them to the barbarian invaders[772]. From all these
details it appears that very different measures of municipal freedom
were granted under different circumstances.
-----
Footnote 771:
Savigny, Röm. Recht. i. 53.
Footnote 772:
The Bishops were the most valuable allies of Clovis in his aggressive
wars. Without their co-operation that savage Merwing would perhaps
never have established the Frankish pre-eminence in the Gauls.
-----
We have considered the general principles of Roman provincial
government, and we now ask, how were these applied in the case of
Britain? The answer is much more difficult to give than might be
imagined. Wealthy as this country was, and capable of conducing to the
power and well-being of its masters, it seems never to have received a
generous, or even fair treatment from them. The Briton was to the last,
as at the first, “penitus toto divisus orbe Britannus,” and his land,
always “ultima Thule,” was made indeed to serve the avarice or ambition
of the ruler, but derived little benefit to itself from the rule.
“Levies, Corn, Tribute, Mortgages, Slaves”—under these heads was Britain
entered in the vast _ledger_ of the Empire. The Roman records do not
tell us much of the details of government here, and we may justly say
that we are more familiar with the state of an eastern or an Iberian
city than we are with that of a British one. A few technical words,
perfectly significant to a people who, above all others, symbolized a
long succession of facts under one legal term, are all that remain to
us; and unfortunately the jurists and statesmen and historians whose
works we painfully consult in hopes of rescuing the minutest detail of
our early condition, are satisfied with the use of general terms which
were perfectly intelligible to those for whom they wrote, but teach us
little. “Ostorius Scapula reduced the hither Britain to the form of a
province[773],”—conveyed ample information to those who took the
institutions of the Empire for granted wherever its eagles flew abroad:
to us they are nearly vain words, a detailed explanation of which would
be valuable beyond all calculation, for it would contain the secret of
the weakness and the sudden collapse of the Empire. But what little we
can gather from ancient sources does not induce us to believe that
Britain met with a just or enlightened measure of treatment at the hands
of her victors. Violence on the one hand, seduction on the other, were
employed to destroy the spirit of resistance, but we do not learn that
submission and docility were rewarded by the communication of a fair
share of those advantages which spring from peace and cultivation.
Agricola, whose information his severe and accomplished son-in-law must
be considered to reproduce, tells us that, on the whole, the Britons
were not difficult subjects to rule, as long as they were not insulted
by a capricious display of power: “The Britons themselves are not
backward in raising the levies and taxes, or filling the offices[774],
if they are only not exposed to insult in doing it. Insult they will not
submit to; for we have beaten them into obedience, but by no means yet
into slavery.” In this peaceable disposition Agricola saw the readiest
means of producing a complete and radical subjection to Rome; and on
this basis he formed his plan of rendering resistance powerless. He
entirely relinquished the forcible method of his predecessors and
applied himself to break down the national spirit by the spreading of
foreign arts and luxuries among the people; judging rightly that the
seductive allurements of ease and cultivation would ere long prove more
efficient and less costly instruments than the constant and dangerous
exercise of military coercion. “Those who did not deeply sound the
purposes of men, called this civilization; but it was part and parcel of
slavery itself[775].” Temples there were, fora, porticoes, baths and
luxurious feasts, Roman manners and Roman vices, and to support them
loans, usurious mortgages and ruin. But we seek in vain for any evidence
of the Romanized Britons having been employed in any offices of trust or
dignity, or permitted to share in the really valuable results of
civilization: there is no one Briton recorded of whom we can confidently
assert that he held any position of dignity and power under the imperial
rule: the historians, the geographers, nay even the novelists (who so
often supply incidental notices of the utmost interest), are here
consulted in vain; nor in the many inscriptions which we possess
relating to Britain, can we point out one single British name. The
caution of Augustus and Tiberius had from the first detected the
difficulties which would attend the maintenance of the Roman authority
in Britain: the feeling at home was, that it would be much more
profitable to raise a small revenue in Gaul upon the British exports and
imports, than to attempt to draw tribute from the island, which would
require a considerable military force for its collection[776]. During
their administration therefore the island was left undisturbed; and even
after Claudius had relinquished this wise moderation, and engaged the
Roman arms in a career of unceasing struggles, Nero felt anxious to
abandon a conquest which promised little to the state and could only be
maintained by the most exhausting efforts. That this reasonable object
was defeated in part by the vanity of the Romans themselves is
probable[777]: but a more cogent reason is to be found in the interests
of the noble usurers, of which we have seen so striking an example in
the philosophical Seneca. Against such motives even the moderation and
justice of an Agricola could avail but little: and after his recall and
disgrace by Domitian, it is easy to imagine that the Roman officials
here would not be too anxious by their good government to attain a
dangerous popularity. Selfish and thoroughly unprincipled as the Roman
government was in all its dependencies, it is little to be thought that
it would manifest any unusual tenderness in this distant, unprofitable
and little known possession: and I think we cannot entertain the least
doubt that the condition of the British aborigines was from the first
one of oppression, and was to the very last a mere downward progress
from misery to misery. But such a system as this—ruinous to the
conquered, and beneficial even to the conquerors only as long as they
could maintain the law of force—had no inherent vitality. It rested upon
a crime,—a sin which in no time or region has the providence of the
Almighty blessed,—the degradation of one class on pretext of benefiting
another. And as the sin, so was also the retribution. The Empire itself
might have endured here, had the Romans taught the Britons to be men,
and reconstituted a vigorous state upon that basis, in the hour of ruin,
when province after province was torn away from the city, and the curse
of an irresponsible will in feeble hands was felt through every quarter
of the convulsed and distracted body. But the Britons had been taught
the arts and luxuries of cultivation that they might be enervated.
Disarmed, except when a jealous policy called for levies to be drafted
into distant armies,—congregated into cities on the Roman plan, that
they might forget the dangerous freedom of their forests,—attracted to
share and emulate the feasts of the victors, that they might learn to
abhor the hard but noble fare of a squalid liberty,—supported and
encouraged in internal war, that union might not bring strength, and
that the Roman slave-dealer might not lack the objects of his detestable
traffic,—how should they develop the manly qualities on which the
greatness of a nation rests? How should they be capable of independent
being, who had only been trained as instruments for the ambition, or
victims to the avarice, of others? To crown all, their beautiful
daughters might serve to amuse the softer hours of their lordly masters;
but there was to be no _connubium_, and thus a half-caste race
inevitably arose among them, growing up with all the vices of the
victors, all the disqualifications of the vanquished. Nor under such
circumstances can population follow a healthy course of development, and
a hardy race be produced to recruit the power and increase the resources
of the state. No price is indeed too great to pay for civilization,—the
root of all individual and national power; but mere cultivation may
easily be purchased far too dearly. It is not worth its cost if it is
obtained only by the sacrifice of all that makes life itself of value.
-----
Footnote 773:
“Consularium primus Aulus Plautius praepositus, ac subinde Ostorius
Scapula, uterque bello egregius: redactaque paulatim in formam
provinciae proxima pars Britanniae.” Tac. Agric. xiv.
Footnote 774:
Agric. xiii. Offices under the Empire were _honores_ or _munera_: the
former, places of dignity and some power, duumvirates and the like:
the latter, places of much labour and great responsibility, coupled
with but little distinction. The condition of a decurion already
described will give some notion of a _munus_; and it is a painful
thing to find Tacitus implying that the _munera_ were troublesome and
repulsive offices at so early a period; for this is clearly his
meaning: he evidently intends to compliment the Keltic population on a
disposition to behave well, if their Roman task-masters will only be
content not to add insult to injury. The case would be nearly parallel
if we made Heki a petty constable, and then held him responsible when
a New-Zealand outlaw stole a sheep or burnt out a missionary.
Footnote 775:
“Sequens hyems saluberrimis consiliis absumpta: namque, ut homines
dispersi ac rudes, eoque in bella faciles, quieti et otio per
voluptates adsuescerent, hortari privatim, adiuvare publice, ut
templa, fora, domus exstruerent, laudando promtos et castigando
segnes: ita honoris aemulatio pro necessitate erat. Iam vero principum
filios liberalibus artibus erudire, et ingenia Britannorum studiis
Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam
concupiscerent. Inde etiam habitus nostri honor et frequens toga:
paullatimque discessum ad delinimenta vitiorum, porticus et balnea et
conviviorum elegantiam: idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum
pars servitutis esset.” Tac. Agric. xxi. “Quaedam civitates Cogidumno
regi donatae ... vetere ac iam pridem recepta populi Romani
consuetudine, ut haberet instrumenta servitutis et reges.” Agric. xiv.
Footnote 776:
Strabo calculated it at not less than one legion, the cost of which
establishment could hardly fail to swallow up all the profit. Νυνὶ
μέντοι τῶν δυναστῶν τινες τῶν αὐτόθι, πρεσβεύσεσι καὶ θεραπείαις
κατασκευασάμενοι τὴν πρὸς Καίσαρα τὸν Σεβαστὸν Φιλίαν, ἀναθήματα τε
ἀνέθηκαν ἐν τῷ Καπετωλίῷ, καὶ οἰκείαν σχεδόν τι παρεσκεύασαν τοῖς
Ῥωμαίοις ὅλην τὴν νῆσον· τέλη τε οὔπως ὑπομένουσι βαρέα τῶν τε
εἰσαγομένων εἰς τὴν Κελτικὴν ἐκεῖθεν καὶ τῶν ἐξαγομένων ἐνθένδε (ταῦτα
δ’ ἐστὶν ἐλεφάντινα ψάλια, καὶ περιαυχένια, καὶ λυγγούρια, καὶ ὑαλᾶ
σκεύη, καὶ ἄλλος ῥῶπος τοιοῦτος) ὥστε μηδὲν δεῖν φροιρᾶς τῆς νήσου·
τοὐλάχιστον μὲν γὰρ ἑνὸς τάγματος χρήζοι ἂν καὶ ἱππικοῦ τινος, ὥστε
καὶ φόρους ἀπάγεσθαι παρ’ αὐτῶν· εἰς ἴσον δὲ καθίστατο πᾶν τὸ ἀνάλωμα
τῆ στρατιᾷ τοῖς προσφερομένοις χρήμασιν· ἀνάγκη γὰρ μειοῦσθαι τὰ τέλη
φόρων ἐπιβαλλομένων, ἅμα δὲ καὶ κινδύνους ἀπαντᾶν τινας, βιὰς
ἐπαγομένης. Geogr. lib. iv. cap. 5, § 3.
Footnote 777:
“Augendi propagandique imperii neque voluntate ulla neque spe motus
unquam, etiam ex Britannia deducere exercitum cogitavit: nec nisi
verecundia, ne obtrectare parentis gloriae videretur, destitit.”
Sueton. vi. 18.
-----
Such, upon the severest and most impartial examination of the facts
which we possess, seems to me to have been the condition of the British
population under the Romans. No otherwise can we even plausibly account
for the instantaneous collapse of the imperial authority: it fell, with
one vast and sudden ruin, the moment the artificial supports upon which
it relied, were removed. Had Britain not been utterly exhausted by
mal-administration, had there remained men to form a reserve, and
resources to victual an army, the last commander who received the
mandate of recall, would probably have thrown off his allegiance, and
proclaimed himself a competitor for empire. Many tried the perilous
game; all lost it, because the country was incapable of furnishing the
means to maintain a contest: and in the meanwhile, the Saxons proceeded
to settle the question in their own way. As such a state of society
supplied no materials for the support of the Roman power, so it
furnished no elements of self-subsistence when that power was removed;
when that hour at length arrived, the possibility of which the
overweening confidence in the fortune of the city had never condescended
to contemplate. Before the eyes of all the nations, and amidst the ruins
of a world falling to pieces in confusion, was this awful lesson written
in gigantic characters by the hand of God—that authority which rules
ill, which rules for its own selfish ends alone, is smitten with
weakness, and shall not endure. It was then that a long-delayed, but not
the less awful retribution burst at last upon the enfeebled empire. Goth
and Vandal, Frank and Sueve and Saxon lacerated its defenceless
frontiers; the terrible Attila—the Scourge of God—ravaged with impunity
its fairest provinces; the eternal city itself twice owed its safety to
the superstition or the contemptuous mercy of the barbarians whose
forefathers had trembled at its name even in the depths of their forest
fastnesses; the legions, unable to maintain themselves, and called—but
called in vain—to defend a state perishing by its own corruptions, left
Britain exposed to the attack of fierce and barbarous enemies that
thronged on every side. Without arms and discipline, and what is far
more valuable than these, the spirit of self-reliance and faith in the
national existence, the Britons perished as they stood: bowing to the
inevitable fate, they passed only from one class of task-masters to
another, and slowly mingled with the masses of the new conquerors, or
fell in ill-conducted and hopeless resistance to their progress.
The Keltic laws and monuments themselves supply conclusive evidence of
the justice of these general observations. Throughout all the ages
during which these populations were in immediate contact with Rome, not
a single ray of Keltic nationality is able to penetrate. It is only
among the mountains of the Cymri, a savage race, as little subjugated by
the Romans, as even to this moment by ourselves, that a trace of that
nationality is to be found. There indeed, guarded by fortresses which
nature itself made impregnable, the heartblood of Keltic society was
allowed to beat; and the barbarians whom policy affected or luxury could
afford to despise, grew up in an independence, features of which we can
still recognize in their legal and poetical remains. The pride of the
invaders might be soothed by the erection of a few castra, or praesidia
or castella in the Welsh marches; the itinerary of an emperor might
finish in a commercial city on the Atlantic; but in Wales the Romans had
hardly a foot of ground which they did not overshadow with the lines of
their fortresses; and to the least instructed eye, the chain of
fortified posts which guard every foot of ground to the east of the
Severn tells of a contemplated retreat and defence upon the base of that
strong line of entrenchments.
And yet how insufficient are the laws and triads of the Cymri in point
of mere antiquity! Let us do all honour to the praiseworthy burst of
Keltic patriotism which has revived in our day: let us even concede that
some few of the triads may carry us back to the sixth century: yet the
earliest Cymric laws of which the slightest trace can be discovered, are
those of Hywel in the tenth. And even, if with a courteous desire to do
justice to the subject, we admit the historical existence of the
fabulous Dynwall and fabulous Marcia[778], who has even insinuated that
a single sentence of their codes survive; or that, if even if such
existed, they had currency a single foot to the eastward of the Severn?
Who can imagine that such laws ever had authority beyond the boundaries
of a solitary sept, more fortunate than the rest, inasmuch as its record
has not, like those of others, perished?
-----
Footnote 778:
We may leave those, if any such there be, who still think Geoffrey of
Monmouth an authority, to cite his proofs that Dynwall Moelmwd
flourished four centuries before Christ; and that the Mercian laws of
Offa, quoted by Ælfred, were those of the British, princess Marcia.
-----
More directly to the purpose is the information we derive from Gildas,
whose patriotism is beyond suspicion, and whose antiquity gives his
assertions some claim to our respect[779]. He tells us that on the final
departure of the Romans, including the _armatus miles_, _militaires
copiae_, and _rectores immanes_ (by which last words he may possibly
intend the civil officers called _rectores provinciarum_), Britain was
_omnis belli usu penitus ignara_, utterly ignorant of the practice of
war[780]: the island was consequently soon overrun by predatory bands of
Picts and Scots whose ravages reduced the inhabitants to the extremest
degree of misery: and these incursions were followed at no great
interval of time by so violent a pestilence that the living were hardly
numerous enough to bury the dead[781]. Then having briefly noticed the
savage invasion of the Saxons, and a defeat which he says they sustained
at Bath, and which is supposed to have been given them by Arthur in the
year 520, he thus continues: “But not even now, as before, are the
cities of my country inhabited; deserted and destroyed, they lie
neglected even unto this day: for civil wars continue, though foreign
wars have ceased[782].” We can easily imagine that a nation in anything
like the state which Gildas describes, might suffer severely from the
brigandage of banditti in the interior; and on the frontier, from raids
and forays of the Picts and Scots. Attacks which even the disciplined
soldiery of Rome found it necessary to bridle by means of such
structures as the walls of Hadrian, Antonine and Severus, must have had
terror enough for a disarmed and disheartened population; nor is it in
the least degree improbable that the universal disorder, the withdrawal
of the legions and some new immigration of Teutonic adventurers set in
motion populations, which in various parts of the country had hitherto
rested quietly under the nominal control of the Roman arms. But still it
is not without surprise that we notice the absence of all evidence that
the Britons even attempted to maintain the cities the Romans had left
them, or to make a vigorous defence behind their solid fortifications,
inexpugnable one would think by rude undisciplined assailants. It is
true, we are told that in half a century England had gone entirely out
of cultivation, and that the land had again become covered with forests
which alone supplied food for the inhabitants[783]: but if this were
really the case—and it is not entirely improbable—it can only have had
the effect of driving the population into the cities. That these were to
a great extent still standing in the fifth century is certain, since
Gildas, in the sixth, represents them as deserted and decaying; that the
Saxons found them yet entire is obvious; in the tenth and twelfth
centuries their ancient grandeur attracted the attention of observant
historians[784]; and even yet their remains testify to the astonishing
skill and foresight of their builders. I cannot therefore but believe
that Britain really was, as described, disarmed and disheartened, and
most probably so depopulated as to be incapable of any serious defence:
a condition which throws a hideous light upon the nature of the Roman
rule and the practices of Roman civilized life.
-----
Footnote 779:
Gildas probably wrote within two centuries of the time when the Romans
left Britain. Two hundred years it is true offer a large margin for
imagination, especially when it is Keltic, and employed about national
history: but Gildas’s report, credible in itself, is confirmed by
other evidence.
Footnote 780:
Gild. Hist. xiv.
Footnote 781:
Ibid. xxii.
Footnote 782:
Gild. Hist. xxvi. Foreign wars, those of the Britons and Saxons;—Civil
wars, those of the Britons among themselves; perhaps those of the
Saxon kings.
Footnote 783:
“Nam laniant seipsos mutuo, nec pro exigui victus brevi sustentaculo
miserrimorum civium latrocinando temperabant: et augebantur extraneae
clades domesticis motibus, quo et huiusmodi crebris direptionibus
vacuaretur omnis regio totius cibi baculo, excepto venatoriae artis
solatio.” Gild. xix. Half a century in an unexhausted soil is ample
time to convert the most nourishing district into thick brushwood and
impervious _bush_. Beech and fir, which, though said by Strabo to be
not indigenous, must have been plentiful in the fifth century, do not
require fifty years to become large trees: the elm, alder and even oak
are well-sized growths at that age. Even thorn, maple and bramble with
such a course before them are very capable of making an imposing
wilderness of underwood.
Footnote 784:
Æðelweard says of the Romans: “Urbes etiam atque castella, necnon
pontes plateasque mirabili ingenio condiderunt, quae usque in
hodiernam diem videntur.” Chron. lib. i. And William of Malmesbury
argues how greatly the Romans valued Britain from the vast remains of
their buildings extant when he wrote. “Romani Britanniam ... magna
dignatione coluere; ut et in annalibus legere, et in veterum
aedificiorum vestigiis est videre.” Gest. Reg. lib. i. cp. 1. The
following is his account of the state in which the island was left:
“Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris praeter semibarbaros, nullum in
urbibus praeter ventri deditos reliquissent, Britannia omni patrocinio
iuvenilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita,
conterminarum gentium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit. Siquidem, e
vestigio, Scottorum et Pictorum incursione multi mortales caesi,
villae succensae, urbes sub-rutae, prorsus omnia ferro incendioque
vastata; turbati insulani, qui omnia tutiora putarent quam praelio
decernere, partim pedibus salutem quaerentes fuga in montana
contendunt, partim sepultis thesauris, quorum plerique in hac aetate
defodiuntur, Romam ad petendas suppetias intendunt.” Gest. Reg. lib.
i. cap. 2, 3. But Rome had then enough to do to defend herself, for
those were the days of Alaric and Attila. The emptying the island of
all the fighting men by Maximus is a very ancient fiction. Archbishop
Usher makes him carry over to the continent thirty thousand soldiers,
and one hundred thousand _plebeii_, which have settled in Armorica.
Antiq. Eccles. Brittan. pp. 107, 108. We may admit the number of the
soldiery; the Roman force, with the levies, probably amounted to as
many. But who were the _plebeii_? Beda gives a similar account of the
condition of Britain: “Exin Brittania, _in parte_ Brittonum, omni
armato milite, militaribus copiis universis, tota floridae iuventutis
alacritate, spoliata, quae tyrannorum temeritate abducta nusquam ultra
domum rediit, praedae tantum patuit, utpote omnis bellici usus prorsus
ignara.” Hist. Eccl. i. 12. cf. Gild. xiv.
-----
It is highly improbable that any large number of the Roman towns
perished during the harassing period within which the Pictish invasions
fall, at all events by violent means. The marauding forays of such
barbarians are not accompanied with battering trains or supported by the
skilful combinations of an experienced commissariat: wandering banditti
have neither the means to destroy such masonry as the Romans erected,
the time to execute, nor in general the motive to form such plans of
subversion. One or two cities may possibly have fallen under the furious
storm of the Saxons, and Anderida is recorded to have done so: more than
this seems to me unlikely: Keltic populations have generally been found
capable of making a very good defence behind walls, in spite of the
ridiculous accounts which Gildas gives of their ineffectual resistance
to the Picts[785]. The Roman cities perished, it is true, but by a far
slower and surer process than that of violent disruption; they crumbled
away under the hand of time, the ruinous consequences of neglect, and
the operation of natural causes, which science finds no difficulty in
assigning. We may believe that the gradual impoverishment of the land
had driven the population to crowd into cities, even before the retreat
of the legions; and that the troublous era of the tyrants[786]
completely emptied the country into the towns. But even if we suppose
that citizens remained and, what is rather an extravagant supposition,
that they remained undisturbed in their old seats, we shall find that
there are obvious reasons why they could not maintain themselves
therein. There are conditions necessary to the very existence of towns,
and without which it is impossible that they should continue to endure.
They must have town-lands, and they must have manufactures and trade: in
other words they must either grow bread or buy it: but to this end they
must have the means of safe and ready communication with country
districts, or with other towns which have this. It matters not whether
that communication be by the sea, as in the case of Tyre and
Carthage[787]; over the desert, as at Bagdad and Aleppo; down the river
or canal, along the turnpike road, or yet more compendious railway: easy
and safe communication is the condition _sine qua non_, of urban
existence.
-----
Footnote 785:
According to him, the Britons suffered the Picts to pull them off the
wall with long-hooks. “Statuitur ad haec in edito arcis acies, segnis
ad pugnam, inhabilis ad fugam, trementibus praecordiis inepta, quae
diebus ac noctibus stupido sedili marcebat. Interea non cessant
uncinata nudorum tela, quibus miserrimi cives de muris tracti solo
allidebantur.” Gild. xix. Beda copies this statement almost verbatim.
Hist. Eccl. i. 12.
Footnote 786:
Britain was at last, even as at first, _fertilis tyrannorum_: and in
the agony which preceded her dissolution more so than ever. Aurelius
Ambrosius, if a Briton at all, is said to have been born of parents
_purpura induti_: and this is possible at a period when it was unknown
to contemporary writers whether a partizan were _imperator_ or only
_latrunculus_. But I suspect that there were not many Britons of rank,
or importance in any way, in the fifth century, in those parts of the
island where the Romans held sway.
Footnote 787:
Athens, though shut up within her walls, felt little inconvenience
from the loss of her corn-fields and vegetable gardens, while her
fleet still swept the Ægean. She fell only when she lost the dominion
of the sea, and with it the means of feeding her population.
-----
Let us apply these principles to the case before us. Even supposing that
Gildas and other authors have greatly exaggerated the state of rudeness
into which the country had fallen, yet we may be certain that one of the
very first results of a general panic would be the obstruction of the
ancient roads and established modes of communication. It is certain that
this would be followed at first by a considerable desertion of the
towns; since every one would anxiously strive to secure that by which he
could feed himself and his family; in preference to continuing in a
place which no longer offered any advantages beyond those of temporary
defence and shelter. The retirement of the Romans, emigration of wealthy
aborigines, general discomfort and disorganization of the social
condition, and ever imminent terror of invasion, must soon have put a
stop to those commercial and manufacturing pursuits which are the
foundation of towns and livelihood of townspeople. Internal wars and
merciless factions which ever haunt the closing evening of states,
increased the misery of their condition; and a frightful pestilence, by
Gildas attributed to the superfluity of luxuries, but which may far more
probably be accounted for by the want of food, completed the universal
ruin.
Still even those who fled for refuge to the land, could find little
opportunity of improving their situation: there was no room for them in
an island which was thenceforward to be organized upon the Teutonic
principles of association. The Saxons were an agricultural and pastoral
people: they required land for their alods,—forests, marshes and commons
for their cattle: they were not only dangerous rivals for the possession
of those estates which, lying near the cities, were probably in the
highest state of cultivation, but they had cut off all communication by
extending themselves over the tracts which lay between city and city.
But they required serfs also, and these might now be obtained in the
greatest abundance and with the greatest security, cooped up within
walls, and caught as it were in traps, where the only alternative was
slavery or starvation[788]. Nor can we reasonably imagine that such
spoils as could yet be wrested from the degenerate inhabitants were
despised by conquerors whose principle it was that wealth was to be won
at the spear’s point[789].
-----
Footnote 788:
“Sic enim et hic agente impio victore, immo disponente iusto iudice,
proximas quasque civitates agrosque depopulans, ab orientali mari
usque ad occidentale, nullo prohibente, suum continuavit incendium,
totamque prope insulae pereuntis superficiem obtexit. Ruebant
aedificia publica simul et privata, passim sacerdotes inter altaria
trucidabantur, praesules cum populis, sine ullo respectu honoris,
ferro pariter et flammis absumebantur; nec erat qui crudeliter
interemptos sepulturae traderet. Itaque nonnulli de miserandis
reliquiis, in montibus comprehensi acervatim iugulabantur; alii fame
confecti procedentes manus hostibus dabant, pro accipiendis
alimentorum subsidiis aeternum subituri servitium, si tamen non
continuo trucidarentur: ali transmarinas regiones dolentes petebant;
alii perstantes in patria pauperem vitam in montibus, silvis vel
rupibus arduis, suspecta semper mente, agebant.” Beda, Hist. Eccl. i.
15. See also Gildas, xxiv. xxv.
Footnote 789:
“Mit géru scal man geba infahan,” with the spear shall men win gifts.
Hiltibrants Lied.
-----
No doubt the final triumph of the Saxons was not obtained entirely
without a struggle: here and there attempts at resistance were made, but
never with such success as to place any considerable obstacle in the way
of the invaders. Spirit-broken, and reduced both in number and
condition, the islanders gradually yielded to the tempest; and with some
allowance for the rhetorical exaggeration of the historian, Britain did
present a picture such as Beda and Gildas have left. Stronghold after
stronghold fell, less no doubt by storm (which the Saxons were in
general not prepared to effect) than by blockade, or in consequence of
victories in the open field. The sack of Anderida by Aelli, and the
extermination of its inhabitants, is the only recorded instance of a
fortified city falling by violent breach, and in this case so complete
was the destruction that the ingenuity of modern enquirers has been
severely taxed to assign the ancient site. But when we are told[790]
that Cúðwulf, by defeating the Britons in 571 at Bedford, gained
possession of Leighton Buzzard, Aylesbury, Bensington and Ensham, I
understand it only of a wide tract of land in Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire, which had previously been dependent
upon towns in those several districts[791], and which perished in
consequence. Again when we are told[792] that six years later Cúðwine
took Bath, and Cirencester and Gloucester, the statement seems to me
only to imply that he cleared the land from the confines of Oxfordshire
to the Severn and southward to the Avon, and so rendered it safely
habitable by his Teutonic comrades and allies. Thirty years later we
find Northumbria stretching westward till the fall of Cair Legion became
necessary: accordingly Æðelfrið took possession of Chester. Its present
condition is evidence enough that he did not level it with the ground,
or in any great degree injure its fortifications.
-----
Footnote 790:
Chron. Sax.
Footnote 791:
It seems difficult to take these statements _au pied de la lettre_.
How could Cúðwulf possibly have manœuvred such a force as he
commanded, so as to fight at Bedford, if, as we must suppose, he
marched from Hampshire or Surrey? How in fact could he ever reach
Bedford, leaving Aylesbury in his rear, Bensington and Ensham on his
left flank, if those places were capable of offering any kind of
resistance? If they were so, we must admit that the Britons richly
merited their overthrow.
Footnote 792:
Chron. Sax. an. 577.
-----
The fact has been already noticed that the Saxons did not themselves
adopt the Roman cities, and the reason for the course they pursued has
been given. They did not want them, and would have been greatly at a
loss to know what to do with them. The inhabitants they enslaved, or
expelled as a mere necessary precaution and preliminary to their own
peaceable occupation of the land: but they neither took possession of
the towns, nor did they give themselves the trouble to destroy
them[793]. They had not the motive, the means or perhaps the patience to
unbuild what we know to have been so solidly constructed. Where it
suited their purpose to save the old Roman work, they used it for their
own advantage: where it did not suit their views of convenience or
policy to establish themselves on or near the old sites, they quietly
left them to decay. There is not even a probability that they in general
took the trouble to dismantle walls or houses to assist in the
construction of their own rude dwellings[794]. Boards and rafters, much
more easily accessible, and to them much more serviceable, much more
easy of transport than stones and bond-tiles, they very likely removed:
the storms, the dews, the sunshine, the unperceived and gentle action of
the elements did the rest,—for desolation marches with giant strides,
and neglect is a more potent leveller than military engines. Clogged
watercourses undermined the strong foundations; decomposed stucco or the
detritus of stone and brick mingled in the deserted chambers with
drifted silt, and dust and leaves; accumulations of soil formed in and
around the crumbling abodes of wealth and power; winged seeds, borne on
the autumnal winds, sunk gently on a new and vigorous bed; vegetation
yearly thickening, yearly dying, prepared the genial deposit; roots
yearly matting deepened the crust; the very sites of cities vanished
from the memory as they had vanished from the eye; till at length the
plough went and the corn waved, as it now waves, over the remains of
palaces and temples in which the once proud masters of the world had
revelled and had worshipped. Who shall say in how many unsuspected
quarters yet, the peasant whistles careless and unchidden above the pomp
and luxury of imperial Rome!
-----
Footnote 793:
Müller, in his treatise on the Law of the Salic Franks, expresses the
opinion that the German conquerors always destroyed the cities which
they found. But the arguments which he adduces appear to me
insufficient in themselves, and to be refuted by the obvious facts of
the case. See his Der Lex Salica alter und Heimath, p. 160. The
passages in Tacitus (Germ. xvi.) and Ammianus (xvi. 2) only prove that
the Germans did not themselves like living in cities, which no one
disputes.
Footnote 794:
This was left for later and more civilized times; witness St. Alban’s
massive abbey, one of the largest buildings in England, constructed
almost entirely of bond-tiles from ancient Verulam. Caen stone would
probably have been easier got and cheaper: but labour-rents must never
be suffered to fall in arrear. It is the only rent which cannot be
fetched up. Old Verulam was first dismantled because Ealdred, a Saxon
abbot, in the tenth century found its cellars and ruined houses
offered an asylum to bad characters of either sex: so runs the story.
-----
Many circumstances combined to make a distinction between the cities of
Britain and those of the Gallic continent. The latter had always been in
nearer relation than our own to Rome: they had been at all periods
permitted to enjoy a much greater measure of municipal freedom, and were
enriched by a more extensive commercial intercourse. England had no city
to boast of so free as Lugdunum, none so wealthy as Massilia. Even in
the time of the Gallic independence they had been far more advanced in
cultivation than the cities of the Britons, and in later days their
organization was maintained by the residence of Roman bishops and a
wealthy body of clergy. Nor on the other hand do the Franks appear to
have been very numerous in proportion to the land, a sufficient amount
of which they could appropriate without very seriously confining the
urban populations: many of these still retained their communications
with the sea: and, lastly, before the conquerors, slowly advancing from
Belgium through Flanders, had spread themselves throughout the populous
and wealthy parts of Gaul, their chiefs had shown a readiness to listen
to the exhortation of Christian teachers, to enter into the communion of
the Church, and recognize its rights and laudable customs. So that in
general, whether among the Lombards in Italy, the Goths in Aquitaine, or
the Franks in Neustria, there was but little reason for a violent
subversion, or even gradual ruin, of the ancient cities. In these the
old subsisting elements of civilization were still tolerated, and
continued to prevail by the force of uninterrupted usage. More happy
than the demoralized and dispossessed inhabitants of Britain, the Roman
provincials under the Frankish and Langobardic rule were still numerous
and important enough to retain their own laws, and the most of their own
customs. Skilful in the character of counsellors or administrators,
wealthy and enterprising as merchant-adventurers, dignified and
influential as forming almost exclusively the class of the clergy, they
still retained their old seats, under the protection of the conquerors:
and thus, for the most part their cities survived the conquest, and
continued under their ancient character, till they slowly gave way at
length in the numerous civil or baronial wars of the middle ages, and
the frequent insurrections of the urban populations in their struggle
for communal liberties.
It is natural to imagine that when once the Saxons broke up from their
peaceful settlements and commenced a career of aggression, they would
direct their marches by the great lines of roads which the Roman or
British authorities had maintained in every part of the island. They
would thus unavoidably be brought into the neighbourhood of earlier
towns, and be compelled to decide the question whether they would attack
and occupy them, or whether they would turn them and proceed on their
march. If the views already expressed in this chapter be correct, it is
plain that no very efficient resistance was to be feared by the
invaders: they could afford to neglect what in the hands of a population
not degraded by the grossest misgovernment would have offered an
insuperable obstacle. But the locality of a town is rarely the result of
accident alone: there are generally some conveniences of position, some
circumstances affecting the security, the comfort or the interests of a
people, that determine the sites of their seats: and these which must
have been nearly the same for each successive race, may have determined
the Saxons to remain where they had determined the Britons or Romans
first to settle. Yet even in this case, and admitting Saxon towns to
have gradually grown up in the neighbourhood of ancient sites, there is
no reason to suppose that either the kings or bishops made their
ordinary residences in them; and thus in England, a very active element
was wanting to the growth and importance of the towns, which we find in
full force in other Roman provinces. In truth both king and bishop
adopted for the most part the old Teutonic habit of wandering from vill
to vill, from manor to manor, and in this country the positions of
cathedrals were as little confined to principal cities as were the
positions of palaces. This is not entirely without strangeness,
especially in the case of the earliest bishops, seeing that we might
reasonably expect Roman missionaries to choose by preference buildings
ready for their purpose, and of a nature to which they had been
accustomed in Italy. Gregory had himself recommended that the heathen
temples should if possible be hallowed to Christian uses; and even if
Christian temples were entirely wanting, which we can scarcely imagine
to have been the case[795], there were yet basilicas in Britain, even as
there had been in Rome, which might be made to serve the purposes of
churches. Nevertheless, whatever we do read teaches us that in general,
on the conversion of a people, structures of the rudest character were
erected even upon the sites of ancient civilization: thus in York,
Eádwine caused a church of wood to be built in haste, “citato opere,”
for the ceremony of his own baptism: thus too in London, upon the
establishment of the see, a new church was built—surely a proof that
Saxon London and Roman London could not be the same place. It is indeed
probable that the missionaries, yet somewhat uncertain of success, and
not secure of the popular good-will, desired to fix their residences
near those of the kings, for the sake both of protection and of
influence; and thus, as the kings did not make their settled residence
in cities whether of Saxon or Roman construction, the sees also were not
established therein[796].
-----
Footnote 795:
We know that it was not the case in Canterbury. Queen Beorhte’s bishop
and chaplain, Liuthart, had restored a ruined church, and officiated
there before the arrival of Augustine.
Footnote 796:
York supplies a striking example of the facts stated in this chapter.
In the ninth century a Danish army pressed by the Saxons took refuge
within its entrenchments. The Saxons determined to attack them, seeing
the weakness of the wall: as Asser says, “Murum frangere instituunt,
quod et fecerunt; non enim tunc adhuc illa civitas firmos et
stabilitos muros illis temporibus habebat.” An. 867. It seems quite
impossible that this should refer to the Roman city of York.
-----
The town of the Saxons had however a totally independent origin, and one
susceptible of an easy explanation. The fortress required by a simple
agricultural people is not a massive pile with towers and curtains,
devised to resist the attacks of reckless soldiers, the assault of
battering-trains, the sap of skilful engineers, or the slow reduction of
famine. A gentle hill crowned with a slight earthwork, or even a stout
hedge, and capacious enough to receive all who require protection,
suffices to repress the sudden incursions of marauding enemies,
unfurnished with materials for a siege or provisions to carry on a
blockade[797]. Here and there such may have been found within the
villages or on the border of the Mark, tenanted perhaps by an earl or
noble with his comites, and thus uniting the characters of the mansion
and the fortress: around such a dwelling were congregated the numerous
poor and unfree settlers, who obtained a scanty and precarious living on
the chieftain’s land; as well as the idlers whom his luxury, his
ambition or his ostentation attracted to his vicinity. Here too may have
been found the rude manufacturers whose craft supplied the wants of the
castellan and his comrades; who may gradually and by slow experience
have discovered that the outlying owners also could sometimes offer a
market for their productions; and who, as matter of favour, could obtain
permission from the lord to exercise their skill on behalf of his
neighbours. Similarly round the church or the cathedral must bodies of
men have gathered, glad to claim its protection, share its charities and
aid in ministering to its wants[798]. I hold it undeniable that these
people could not feed themselves, and equally so that food would find
its way to them; that the neighbouring farmer,—instead of confining his
cultivation to the mere amount necessary for the support of his
household or the discharge of the royal dues,—would on their account
produce and accumulate a capital, through which he could obtain from
them articles of convenience and enjoyment which he had neither the
leisure nor the skill to make. In this way we may trace the growth of
barter, and that most important habit of resorting to fixed spots for
commercial and social purposes. In this process the lord had himself a
direct and paramount interest. If he took upon himself to maintain
freedom of buying and selling, to guarantee peace and security to the
chapmen, going and coming, he could claim in return a slight recognition
of his services in the shape of toll or custom. If the intervention of
his officers supplied an easy mode of attesting the _bona fides_ of a
transaction, the parties to it would have been unreasonable had they
resisted the jurisdiction which thus gradually grew up. So that on all
accounts we may be assured that the lord encouraged as much as possible
the resort of strangers to his domain. In the growing prosperity of his
dependents, his own condition was immediately and extensively concerned.
Even their number was of importance to his revenue, for a
capitation-tax, however light, was the inevitable condition of their
reception. Their industry as manufacturers or merchants attracted
traffic to his channels. Lastly in a military, political and social
view, the wealth, the density and the cultivation of his
burgher-population were the most active elements of his own power,
consideration and influence. What but these rendered the Counts of
Flanders so powerful as they were throughout the middle ages? Let it now
be only considered with what rapidity all these several circumstances
must tend to combine and to develop themselves, as the class of free
landowners diminishes in extent and influence and that of the lords
increases. Concurrent with such a change must necessarily be the
extension of mutual dependence, which is only another name for traffic,
and, as far as this alone is concerned, a great advance in the material
well-being of society. It is difficult to conceive a more hopeless state
than one in which every household should exactly suffice to its own
wants, and have no wants but such as itself could supply. Fortunately
for human progress, it is one which all experience proves to be
impossible. There is no principle of social ethics more certain than
this, that in proportion as you secure to a man the command of the
necessaries of life, you awaken in him the desire for those things which
adorn and refine it. And all experience also teaches that the attempt of
any individual to provide both classes of things for himself and within
the limits of his own household, will totally fail; that time is wanting
to produce any one thing in perfection; that skill can only be attained
by exclusive attention to one object; and that a division of labour is
indispensable if society is to be enabled to secure, at the least
possible sacrifice, the greatest possible amount of comforts and
conveniences. The farmer therefore raises, stores and sells the
abundance of the grain which he well knows how to gain from his fields;
and, relinquishing the vain attempt to make clothes or hardware,
ornamental furniture and articles of household utility or elegance, nay
even ploughs and harrows,—the instruments of his industry,—purchases
them with his superfluity. And so in turn with his superfluity does the
mechanic provide himself with bread which he lacks the land, the tools
and the skill to raise. But the cultivator and the herdsman require land
and space: the mechanic is most advantageously situated where numbers
concentrate, where his various materials can be brought together cheaply
and speedily; where there is intercourse to sharpen the mind; where
there is population to assist in processes which transcend the skill or
strength of the individual man. The wealth of the cultivator, that is,
his superabundant bread, awakens the mechanic into existence; and the
existence of the mechanic, speedily leading to the enterprise of the
manufacturer, and the venture of the distributor, broker, merchant, or
shopman, ultimately completes the growth of the town. It is unavoidable
that the first mechanics—beyond the heroical weapon-smith on the one
hand, and on the other the poor professors of such rude arts as the
homestead cannot do without,—the wife that spins, the husbandman that
hammers his own share and coulter—should be those who have no land; that
is, in the state of society which we are now considering,—the unfree. It
is a mere accident that they should gather round this lord or that, on
his extensive possessions, or that they should seek shelter, food and
protection in the neighbourhood of the castle or the cathedral: but
where they do settle, in process of time the town must come.
-----
Footnote 797:
Ida built Bebbanburh, Bamborough, which was at first enclosed by a
hedge, and afterwards by a wall. Chron. Sax. an. 547.
Footnote 798:
The growth of a city round a monastery is well instanced in the case
of Bury St. Edmund’s. The following passage is cited from Domesday
(371, b) in the notes to Mr. Rokewode’s edition of Jocelyn de
Brakelonde. “In the town where the glorious king and martyr St. Edmund
lies buried, in the time of king Edward, Baldwin the abbot held for
the sustenance of the monks one hundred and eighteen men; and they can
sell and give their land; and under them fifty-two _bordarii_, from
whom the abbot can have help; fifty-four freemen poor enough;
forty-three living upon alms; each of them has one _bordarius_. There
are now two mills and two store-ponds or fish-ponds. This town was
then worth ten pounds, now twenty. It has in length one leuga and a
half, and in breadth as much. And it pays to the geld, when payable in
the hundred, one pound. And then the issues therefrom are sixty pence
towards the sustenance of the monks; but this is to be understood of
the town as it was in the time of king Edward, if it so remains; for
now it contains a greater circuit of land, the which was then ploughed
and sown; where, one with another, there are thirty priests, deacons
and clerks, twenty-eight nuns and poor brethren who pray daily for the
king and all Christian people; eighty less five bakers, brewers,
seamsters, fullers, shoemakers, tailors, cooks, porters, serving-men;
and these all daily minister to the saint, and abbot and brethren.
Besides whom there are thirteen upon the land of the reeve, who have
their dwellings in the same town, and under them five _bordarii_. Now
there are thirty-four persons owing military service, taking French
and English together, and under them twenty-two _bordarii_. Now in the
whole there are three hundred and forty-two dwellings in the demesne
of the land of St. Edmund, which was arable in the time of king
Edward.” Chron. Joc. de Brakelonde, pp. 148, 149 (Camden Society).
Similarly Durham and other towns grew up around cathedrals.
-----
The conditions under which this shall constitute itself are many and
various. For a long while they will greatly depend upon the original
circumstances which accompanied and regulated the settlement. When a
great manufacturing and commercial system has been founded, embracing
states and not petty localities only, it is clear that petty local
interests will cease to be the guiding principles: but this state of
things transcends the limits of a rude and early society. The liberties
of the first cities must often have been mere favours on the part of the
lords who owned the soil, and protected the dwellers upon it. Later
these liberties were the result of bargains between separate powers,
grown capable of measuring one another. Lastly, they are necessities
imposed by an advanced condition of human associations, in which the
wishes, objects and desires of the individual man are hurried
resistlessly away by a great movement of civilization, in which the vast
attraction of the mass neutralizes and defeats all minor forces. It
would indeed be but slight philosophy to suppose that any one set of
circumstances could account for the infinite variety which the history
of towns presents: though there are features of resemblance common to
them all, yet each has its peculiar story, its peculiar conditions of
progress and decay; even as the children of one family, which bear a
near likeness to each other, yet each has its own tale of joy and
sorrow, of smiles and tears, of triumph and failure. Yet there is
probably no single element of urban prosperity more potent than
situation, or which more pervasively modifies all other and concurrent
conditions of success. Let the most careless observer only compare
London, Liverpool and Bristol, I will not say with Munich or Madrid, but
even with Warwick, Stafford or Winchester. If royal favour and court
gaieties could have made cities great, the latter should have
flourished; for they were the residences of the rulers of Mercia and
Wessex, the scenes of witena gemóts, of Christmas festivals and Easters
when the king solemnly wore his crown; while the _ceorls_ or _mangeras_
of Brigstow and Lundenwíc were only cheapening hides with the
Esterlings, warehousing the foreign wines which were to supply the royal
table, or bargaining with the adventurer from the East for the incense
which was to accompany the high mass in the Cathedral. But Commerce, the
child of opportunity, brought wealth; wealth, power; and power led
independence in its train.
Against the manifold relations which arose during the gradual
development of urban populations, the original position of the lord
could not be maintained intact. It is indeed improbable that in any very
great number of cases, the inhabitants of an English town long continued
in the condition of personal serfage. The lords were too weak, the
people too strong, for a system like that of the French nobles and their
towns ever to have become settled here; nor had our city populations,
like the Gallic provincials, the habit and use of slavery. The first
settlers on a noble’s land may have been unfree; serfs and oppressed
labourers from other estates may have been glad to take refuge among
them from taskmasters more than ordinarily severe; but in this unmixed
state they did not long remain. There is no doubt that freemen gradually
united with them under the lord’s protection or in his alliance; that
strangers sojourned among them in hope of profits from traffic; and
hence that a race gradually grew up, in whom the original feelings of
the several classes survived in a greatly modified form. To this, though
generally so difficult to trace step by step in history, we owe the
difference of the urban government in different cities,—distinctions in
detail more frequent than is commonly supposed, and which can be
unhesitatingly referred to the earliest period of urban existence, if
not in fact, at least in principle,—institutions representing in a
shadowy manner the distant conditions under which they arose, and for
the most part separated in the sharpest contrast from the ordinary forms
prevalent upon the land.
The general outline of an urban constitution, in the earlier days of the
Saxons, may have been somewhat of the following character. The freemen,
either with or without the co-operation of the lord, but usually with
it, formed themselves into associations or clubs, called _gylds_. These
must not be confounded either on the one side with the Hanses (in
Anglosaxon Hósa), i. e. trading guilds, or on the other with the guilds
of crafts (“collegia opificum”) of later ages. Looking to the analogy of
the country-gylds or Tithings, described in detail in the ninth chapter
of the First Book, we may believe that the whole free town population
was distributed into such associations; but that in each town, taken
altogether, they formed a compact and substantive body called in general
the _Burhwaru_, and perhaps sometimes more especially the _Ingang
burhware_, or “burgher’s club[799].” It is also certain from various
expressions in the boundaries of charters, as “Burhware mǽd,” “burhware
mearc,” and the like, that they were in possession of real property as a
corporate body, whether they had any provision for the management of
corporation revenues, we cannot tell; but we may unhesitatingly affirm
that the gylds had each its common purse, maintained at least in part by
private contributions, or what we may more familiarly term _rates_
levied under their bye-laws. These gylds, whether in their original
nature religious, political, or merely social unions, rested upon
another and solemn principle: they were sworn brotherhoods between man
and man, established and fortified upon “áð and wed,” oath and pledge;
and in them we consequently recognize the germ of those sworn communes,
_communae_ or _communiae_[800], which in the times of the densest
seigneurial darkness offered a noble resistance to episcopal and
baronial tyranny, and formed the nursing-cradles of popular liberty.
They were alliances offensive and defensive among the free citizens, and
in the strict theory possessed all the royalties, privileges and rights
of independent government and internal jurisdiction. How far they could
make these valid, depended entirely upon the relative strength of the
neighbouring lord, whether he were ealdorman, king or bishop. Where they
had full power, they probably placed themselves under a geréfa of their
own, duly elected from among the members of their own body, who
thenceforth took the name of Portgeréfa or Burhgeréfa, and not only
administered justice in the burhwaremót or husting, on behalf of the
whole state, but if necessary led the city trainbands to the field. Such
a civic political constitution seems the germ of those later liberties
which we understand by the expression that a city is a county of
itself,—words once more weighty than they now are, when privilege has
become less valuable before the face of an equal law. Nevertheless there
was once a time when it was no slight advantage for a population to be
under a portreeve or sheriff of their own, and not to be exposed to the
arbitrary will of a noble or bishop who might claim to exercise the
comitial authority within their precincts. Such a free organization was
capable of placing a city upon terms of equality with other constituted
powers; and hence we can easily understand the position so frequently
assumed by the inhabitants of London. As late as the tenth century, and
under Æðelstán, a prince who had carried the influence of the crown to
an extent unexampled in any of his predecessors, we find the burghers
treating as power to power with the king, under their portreeves and
bishop: engaging indeed to follow his advice, if he have any to give
which shall be for their advantage; but nevertheless constituting their
own sworn gyldships or commune, by their own authority, on a basis of
mutual alliance and guarantee, as to themselves seemed good[801].
-----
Footnote 799:
The “Ingang burhware” may possibly be only a selected portion of the
population; as, for example, the richer inhabitants, a special
burgher’s club. The argument in the text is no way affected by the
pre-eminence of some particular association among the rest, and an
“Ingang burhware,” even if a distinct thing, only proves the existence
of a “burhwaru” besides. However it is probable that there was a
general disposition to admit as many members as possible into
associations whose security and influence would greatly depend upon
their numbers.
Footnote 800:
The word _communa_ occurs at almost every page of the ‘Liber de
antiquis Legibus,’ to express the whole commonalty of the city of
London. Glanville himself uses _communa_ and _gyldae_ as equivalent
terms. “Item si quis nativus quiete per unum annum et unum diem in
aliquâ villâ privilegiatâ manserit, ita quod in eorum _communiam_,
scilicet _gyldam_, tanquam civis receptus fuerit, eo ipso a villenagio
liberabitur.” Lib. v. cap. 5. The reader may consult with advantage
Thierry’s history of the Communes in France, in his ‘Lettres sur
l’histoire de France,’ a work which has not received in this country
an attention at all commensurate to its merits, or comparable to that
bestowed upon his far less sound production the ‘Conquête de
l’Angleterre par les Normands.’ At the same time it would be an error
to apply the example of the French Communes to our own or those of
Flanders, which had frequently a very different origin. See Warnkönig,
Hist. de Flandre, par Gheldolf: Bruxelles, 1835, particularly vol. ii.
with its valuable appendixes.
Footnote 801:
This truly interesting and important document will be found in an
appendix to this Book. In fact the principle of all society during the
Saxon period is that of free association upon terms of mutual
benefit,—a noble and a grand principle, to the recognition of which
our own enlightened period is as yet but slowly returning.
-----
The rights of such a corporation were in truth royal. They had their own
alliances and feuds; their own jurisdiction, courts of justice and power
of execution; their own markets and tolls; their own power of internal
taxation; their personal freedom with all its dignity and privileges.
And to secure these great blessings they had their own towers and walls
and fortified houses, bell and banner, watch and ward, and their own
armed militia.
Such too were the rights which, in more than one European country, the
brave and now forgotten burghers of the twelfth century strove to wring
from the territorial aristocracy that hemmed them in; when ancient
tradition had not lost its vigour, though liberty had been trampled
under the armed hoof of power. If we admire and glory in these true
fathers of popular freedom, firm in success, unbroken by
defeat,—steadfast in council, steadfast in the field, steadfast even
under the seigneurial gibbet and in the seigneurial dungeon,—let us yet
give our meed of thanks to those still older assertors of the dignity of
man, duly honouring the gyldsmen of the tenth century, who handed down
their noble inheritance to the less fortunate burgesses of the twelfth.
Few pictures from the past may the eye rest upon with greater pleasure
than that of a Saxon portreeve looking down from his strong gyld-hall
upon the well-watched walls and gates that guard the populous market of
his city[802]. The fortified castle of a warlike lord may frown upon the
adjacent hill; the machicolated and crenelated walls of the cathedral
close, with buttress and drawbridge, may tell of the temporal power and
turbulence of the episcopate; but in the centre of the square stands the
symbolic statue which marks the freedom of jurisdiction and of
commerce[803]; balance in hand, to show the right of unimpeded traffic;
sword in hand, to intimate the _ius gladii_, the right to judge and
punish, the right to guard with the weapons of men all that men hold
dearest.
-----
Footnote 802:
“Ealdredesgate et Cripelesgate, _i. e._ portas illas, observabant
custodes.” Inst. London. § 1. Thorpe, i. 300.
Footnote 803:
In the cities of the Roman empire with Jus Italicum a statute of
Marsyas or Silenus was erected in the forum. Servius ad Æneid. iv. 58.
“Patrique Lyæo.—Urbibus libertatis est deus, unde etiam Marsyas,
minister eius, per civitates in foro positus, libertatis indicium est;
qui erecta manu testatur nihil urbi deesse.” So also Æneid, iii. 20.
The reader of Horace will remember the Marsyas in the Forum as
symbolizing the magistrate’s jurisdiction. Whether the Germanic
populations derived their pillar, figure or statue from the Roman
custom seems uncertain: certain however it is that the Rolandseule,
the pillar or figure of Orlando, (and, as is sometimes said, of
Charlemagne) denotes equally “nihil urbi deesse.”
-----
Again, no brighter picture than the present; when, drawing a veil over
the miserable convulsions of a nearly millennial struggle, we can
contemplate the mayor of the same town wandering with a satisfied eye
over the space where those old walls once stood, but which now is
covered with the workshop, the manufactory or the house, the reward of
patient, peaceful industry. Looking to the hill, crowned with its
picturesque ruin, he sees the mansion of a noble citizen united with
himself in zealous obedience to an equal law,—the peer who in the
higher, or the burgess who in the lower house of parliament, consults
for the weal of the community, and derives his own value and importance
most from the trust reposed in him by his fellow-townsmen. We can now
contemplate this peaceful magistrate (elected because his neighbours
honour his worth and the character won in a successful civic career,—not
because he is a stout man-at-arms, or tried in perilous adventure,) when
turning again to the ruined defences of the old cathedral, he sees
streets instinct with life, where the ditch yawned of yore, walls
picturesque with the ivy of uncounted ages, now carved out into quaint,
prebendal houses; and while he admires the beauty of their architecture,
wonders why the gates of cathedral closes should have been so strongly
built, or bear so unnecessary a resemblance to fortresses. Still in the
market-place stands the belfry, once dreaded by the neighbouring tyrant:
but its bell calls no longer to the defence of a city, which now fears
no enemy. The tenant of its dungeon is no more a turbulent man-at-arms,
or well-born hostage: the dignity of the prisoner rises no higher than
that of a petty market-pilferer, and the name of the belfry itself is
forgotten in that of the “cage.” Over the flesh- or fish-stalls perhaps
yet stands the mysterious statue, inherited from earlier times, but
without the meaning of the inheritance. The sword and balance are still
there, but it is no longer Marsyas or Silenus or Orlando: flowing robes
and bandaged eyes have transformed it into a harmless allegory; and
where the warlike citizen, whose privileges were maintained with sweat
and blood, erewhile looked upon it as the symbol—if not the talisman—of
freedom, his modern successor, as his humour leads him, wonders whether
_Justice_ were ever wanting in that place, or smiles to think that her
eyes are closed to the petty tricks of temporary stall-keepers.
Beyond all price indeed is this privilege of quiet inherited from our
earnest forefathers, and great the debt of gratitude we owe to those
whose wisdom laid, whose courage and patience maintained, its deep
foundations.
Yet not in all cases can we draw so favourable a picture of the
condition of an Anglosaxon town: in many of them, the unfree dwelt by
the side of the freemen in their gylds, under the presidency of their
lord’s geréfa. And where the number of the unfree was greatly
preponderant, and the power of the lord proportionally increased, we
cannot but believe that the freemen themselves were too often deprived
of their most cherished privileges. Without going quite so far as the
custom in some mediæval towns, where the air itself was emphatically
said to be loaded with serfage,—where slavery was epidemic[804],—it is
but too evident that in many places, the free settlers, while they
retained their wergyld and perhaps other personal rights, must yet have
been subject like their neighbours to servile dues and works, and
compelled to attend the lord’s court. Let us only imagine a case which
was probably not uncommon; where the lord, with his own numerous unfree
dependents, occupied the post of the king’s burggeréfa, the bishop’s or
abbot’s _advocatus_, and forced himself as their geréfa upon the free.
What refuge could there be for these, if he determined to assimilate his
various jurisdictions, and subject all alike to the convenient machinery
of a centralized authority? They might in vain declare, as did the
Northumbrians of old, that “free by birth and educated as freemen, they
scorned to submit to the tyranny of any duke,” or count or geréfa,—but
what remedy had they, when once the defence of the mutual guarantee was
removed? Theoretically of course they were _cyre-lif_, that is, they
could go away and choose a lord elsewhere: but we may fairly doubt
whether they could practically do this. New connexions are not easily
formed in a state which enjoys but little means of intercommunication:
what would be sacrificed now without regret, assumes a very
disproportionate importance at a period when accumulation is slow, and
acquisition difficult: nor could the expatriated chapman securely remove
his valuables from one place to another; or even legally withdraw from
the district where he felt himself aggrieved, without the consent of the
very officer from whose unjust exactions he desired to escape. Under
such circumstances of difficulty, it is to be supposed that, like the
prædial freemen on the country estates, they were reduced to make the
best bargain that they could; in other words, that they ultimately
submitted to the customs of the place.
-----
Footnote 804:
“Die Luft macht eigen.”
-----
Moreover there may have been then, as there frequently were in the
twelfth century, a plurality of lords each having _ban_ or jurisdiction
in particular localities[805], each having different customs to enforce,
separate and conflicting interests to further, and a separate armament
to dispose of. Often, as we pursue the history of mediæval cities, do we
find king, count, and bishop, with perhaps one or more barons or
castellans, claiming portions of the town as subject in totality or
shares to their several jurisdictions, imposing heavy capitation-taxes
on their own dependents, establishing hostile tolls or tariffs to the
injury of internal traffic, warring with one another, from motives of
pride or hate, ambition or avarice, and dragging their reluctant quotas
of the city into internecine hostilities, ruinous to the interests of
all. And then, if strong enough, among them all subsists a corporation
of burgesses, perhaps a turbulent mob of handicrafts, distributed in
gylds or mysteries, with their deacons, common-chests, banners, and
barricades:—freer than the old serfs were, but unfree still as regards
the corporation: for the full burgesses have made alliances with the
nobles, have enrolled the nobles as burgesses in their _Hanse_, and have
become themselves an aristocracy as compared with the democracy of the
crafts. Or the corporation of freemen may have elected a noble
_advocatus_, _Vogt_ or Patron, to be the constable of their castle, and
to lead their militia against his brethren by birth and rivals in
estate. Or they may have coalesced with the crafts in a bond of union
for general liberation:—unhappily too rare a case, for even those old
burgesses sometimes forgot their own origin, and blundered into the
belief that liberty meant privilege[806].
-----
Footnote 805:
_Banlieu_, banni leuca, or according to some etymologists, banni
locus.
Footnote 806:
Slight as this sketch is, it may serve to throw some light upon the
fortunes of the Flemish and Italian cities. Dönniges gives a most
interesting and instructive account of Regensburg in very early times,
with its three fortified quarters,—the Count’s (Palatium, Pfalz or
Imperial _banlieu_), the Bishop’s, and the Burghers’ or Merchants’
quarter. Deut. Staatsr. p. 250, _seq._
-----
The misery and mischief of this state of things were not so prominent
among the Anglosaxons, because the subdivision of powers was much less
than where the principles of feudality prevailed, and the lords and
castellans were not numerous. Nor were the guarantees which the tithings
and gyldships offered, and which were secured by the popular election of
officers, at any time entirely devoid of their original force. History
therefore records no instances of such painful struggles as marked the
progress of the continental cities, or even of our own subsequent to the
Norman conquest. But we are nevertheless not without examples of towns
in which the powers of government were unequally divided: where the
king, the bishop and the burgesses, or the king and bishop alone, shared
in the civil and criminal jurisdiction. In these the burh, properly so
called, or fortification, often formed part of the city walls, or
commanded the approaches to the market. In it sat the royal burhgeréfa
and administered justice to the freemen; while the unfree also appeared
in his court, and became gradually confounded with the free in his sócn
or jurisdiction. On the other hand the bishop, through his sócnegeréfa,
judged and taxed and governed his own particular dependents: unless the
power of the king had been such as to unite all the inhabitants in one
body under the authority of the royal thane who exercised the palatine
functions. Even in the burgmót of the freemen did the royal and
episcopal reeves appear as assessors, to watch over the interests of
their respective employers, and add a specious, but little suspected,
show of authority to the acts of the corporation.
We are still fortunately able to give some account of the growth of
various English towns, which seem to have arisen after the close of the
Danish wars, and the successive victories of Ælfred’s children, Eádweard
king of Wessex, and Æðelflǽd, duchess of Mercia.
By the treaty of peace between Ælfred and Guðorm, a very considerable
tract of country in the north and east of England was surrendered to the
latter and his Scandinavian allies. It is clear that from very early
periods this district had contained important cities and fortresses, but
many of these had probably perished during the wars which expelled the
Northumbrian and Mercian kings, and finally reduced their territories
under the arms of the Danish invaders. The efforts of Ælfred had indeed
succeeded in saving his ancestral kingdoms of Wessex and Kent, and by
the articles of Wedmor he had become possessed of a valuable part of
Mercia, between the Severn, the Ouse, the Thames and the Watling-street.
To the east and north of these lines however, the Scandinavians had
settled, dividing the lands, for the most part denuded of their Saxon
population, or occupied by Saxons who had submitted to the invader and
made common cause with him, against a king of Wessex to whom they owed
no allegiance. The Eastanglians and a portion of the Northumbrians had
adopted the kingly form of government; but there were still independent
populations in those districts following their national Jarls, and in
the North was a powerful confederation of five Burghs or cities, which
sometimes included seven, comprising in one political unity, York,
Lincoln, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Stamford and Chester[807]. The
power of the Scandinavians however was frittered away in internal
quarrels, and those two children of Wessex, Eádweard and his
lion-hearted sister, determined upon carrying into the country of the
Pagans the sufferings which they had so often inflicted upon others. A
career of conquest was commenced from the west and the south; place
after place was cleared of the intruding strangers, by men themselves
intruders, but gifted with better fortune; the Scandinavians were either
thrown back over the Humber, or compelled to submit to Saxon arms; and
the country wrested from them was secured and bridled by a chain of
fortresses erected and garrisoned by the victors.
-----
Footnote 807:
The “Five Burghs” were Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and
Stamford. Chester and York could only be joined in a more distant
alliance, but still when there was a common action among them, they
were called the “Seven Burghs.”
-----
In the course of this victorious career we learn that Æðelflǽd erected
the following fortresses[808]:—In 910, the burh at Bremesbyrig: in 912,
those at Scargate and Bridgnorth: in 913, those at Tamworth and
Stafford: in 914, those at Eddisbury and Warwick: in 915, the fortresses
of Cherbury, Warborough and Runcorn. In 917 she took the fortified town
of Derby; and in 918, Leicester: and thus, upon the submission of York,
in the same year, broke up the independent organization of the “Seven
Burhs.”
-----
Footnote 808:
These statements are taken from the Saxon Chronicle, Florence of
Worcester, Simeon, and other authorities, under the years quoted. For
the sake of illustration I have added in the Appendix a list of
Anglosaxon towns, whose origin we have some means of tracing.
-----
The evidences of Eádweard’s activity are yet more numerous. The
following burhs or towns are recorded to have been built by him. In 913,
the northern burh at Hertford, between the rivers Mimera, Benefica and
Lea: a burh at Witham, and soon after another on the southern bank of
the Lea. In 918, he constructed burhs, or fortresses, on both sides of
the river at Buckingham. In 919 he raised the burh on the southern bank
of the Ouse at Bedford. In 921 he fortified Towchester with a stone
wall; and in the same year he rebuilt the burhs at Huntingdon and
Colchester, and built the burh at Cledemouth. The following year he
built the burh on the southern bank of the river at Stamford, and
repaired the castle of Nottingham. In 923 he built a fortress at
Thelwall, and repaired one at Manchester. In 924 he built another castle
at Nottingham, on the south bank of the Trent, over against that which
stood on the northern bank, and threw a bridge between them. Lastly he
went to Bakewell in Derbyshire, where he built and garrisoned a burh.
A large number of these were no doubt merely castles or fortresses, and
some of them, we are told, received stipendiary garrisons, that is
literally, king’s troops, contradistinguished on the one hand from the
free landowners who might be called upon under the _hereban_ to take a
turn of duty therein, and on the other from the unfree tenants, part of
whose rent may have been paid in service behind the walls. But it is
also certain that the shelter and protection of the castle often
produced the town, and that in many cases the mere sutler’s camp, formed
to supply the needs of the permanent garrison, expanded into a
flourishing centre of commerce, guarded by the fortress, and nourished
by the military road or the beneficent river. It is also probable enough
that on many of their sites towns, or at least royal vills, had
previously existed, and that the population whom war and its concomitant
misery had dispossessed, returned to their ancient seats, when quiet
seemed likely to be permanently restored.
It cannot be doubted that those who were already congregated, or for the
sake of security or gain did afterwards collect in such places, were
subject to the authority of the burhgeréfa or castellan, and that thus
the burh by degrees became a Palatium or Pfalz in the German sense of
the word. In truth _burh_ does originally denote a castle, not a town;
and the latter only comes to be designated by the word, because a town
could hardly be conceived without a castle,—a circumstance which favours
the account here given of their origin in general.
It is certain that the free institutions which have been described in an
earlier part of this chapter, could not be found in towns, the right to
which must be considered to have been based on conquest, or which arose
around a settlement purely military. In such places we can expect to
find no mint, except as matter of grant or favour: if there was watch
and ward, it was for the fortress, not the townsmen: toll there might
be—but for the lord to receive: jurisdiction,—but for the lord to
exercise: market,—but for the lord to profit by: armed militia,—but for
the lord to command. Yet while the lord was the king, and the town was,
through its connexion with him, brought into close union with the
general state, its own condition was probably easy, and its civic
relations not otherwise than beneficial to the republic. In such
circumstances a town is only one part of a system; nor is a royal
landlord compelled to rack the tenants of a single estate for a fitting
subsistence: the shortcoming of one is balanced by the superfluity of
other sources of wealth. The owner of the small flock is ever the
closest shearer. But even on this account, when once the towns became
seigneurial, their own state was not so happy, nor was their relation to
the country at large beneficial to the full extent. But all general
observations of this character do not explain or account for the
separate cases. It is clear that everything which we have to say upon
this subject will depend entirely upon what we may learn to have been
the character of any particular person or class of persons at any given
time. The lord or Seigneur may have ruled well; that is, he may have
seen that his own best interests were inseparably bound up with the
prosperity, the peace and the rational freedom of his dependents; and
that both he and they would flourish most, when the mutual well-being
was guarded by a harmonious common action, founded upon the least
practicable sacrifice of individual interests. Thus he may have
contented himself with the legal capitation-tax, or even relinquished it
altogether: he may have exacted only moderate and reasonable tolls,
trusting wisely to a consequent increase of traffic, and rewarded by a
rapid advance in wealth and power: he may have given a just and generous
protection in return for submission and alliance; have supported his
townsmen in their public buildings, roads, wharves, canals, and other
laudable undertakings. Nay, when the re-awakened spirit of
self-government grew strong, and the whole mighty mass of mediæval
society heaved and tossed with the working of this all-pervading leaven,
we have even seen Seigneurs aiding their serf-townsmen to swear and
maintain a “Communa,”—that institution so detested and savagely
persecuted by popes, barons and bishops,—so hypocritically blamed, but
so lukewarmly pursued by kings, who found it their gain to have the
people on their side against the nobles[809].
-----
Footnote 809:
History furnishes notable instances of what has been put here merely
hypothetically. The earls of Flanders were honourably distinguished
among all the European potentates by the liberal manner in which they
treated their subjects. The appendix to this chapter contains some of
the earliest charters which they granted to their towns, and these
fully explain the wealth, power and happiness of Flanders in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And notwithstanding what I have said
in the text, and which is justified by the conduct of the bishops in
some parts of Europe, it must be admitted that the clergy were
generally just and merciful lords, as far as the material well-being
of their dependents was concerned. The German proverb says: “’Tis good
to live under the crozier.”
-----
But unhappily there is another side to the picture: the lord may have
ruled ill, and often did so rule, for class-prejudices and short-sighted
selfish views of personal interest drove him to courses fatal to himself
and his people. When this was the case, there was but one miserable
alternative, revolt, and ruin either for the lord, the city, or both,—in
the former case possibly, in the latter always and certainly a grievous
loss to the republic. But before this final settlement of the question,
how much irreparable mischief, how much of credit and confidence shaken,
of raw material wasted and destroyed, of property plundered, of security
unsettled, of internecine hostility engendered, class set against class,
family against family, man against man! Verily, when we contemplate the
misery which such contests caused from the twelfth to the fifteenth
centuries, we could almost join in the cry of the Jacquerie, and wish,
with the prædial and urban serfs of old, that the race of Seigneurs had
been swept from the face of the earth; did we not know that gold must be
tried in the fire, that liberty could grow to a giant’s stature only by
passing through a giant’s struggles.
But from this painful school of manhood it pleased the providence of the
Almighty to save our forefathers; nor does Anglosaxon history record
more than one single instance of those oppressions or of that
resistance, which make up so large and wretched a portion of the history
of other lands[810]. Suffering enough they had to bear, but it was at
the hands of invading strangers, not of those who were born beneath the
same skies and spake with the same tongue. The power of the national
institutions was too general, too deeply rooted, to be shaken by the
efforts of a class; nor does it appear that that class itself attempted
at any time an undue exercise of authority. One ill-advised duke did
indeed raise a fierce rebellion by his misgovernment; but even here
national feeling was probably at work, and the Northumbrians rose less
against the bad ruler, than the intrusive Westsaxon: the interests of
Morcar’s family were more urgent than the crimes of Tostig. Yet these
may have been grave, for he was repudiated even by those of his own
class, and the strong measure of his deprivation and outlawry was
concurred in by his brother Harald.
-----
Footnote 810:
Even under the Norman kings, the condition of this country seems to
have been comparatively easy. Its darkest moments were during the wars
of Stephen and Henry Plantagenet. The position then assumed by the
seigneurs or castellans and its results are thus well described by an
old chronicler:—“Sane inter partes diu certatum est, alternante
fortuna; sed tunc quodammodo remissiores motus esse coeperunt: quod
tamen Angliae non cessit in bonum, eo quod tot erant reges quot domini
castellorum, habentes singuli numisma proprium et more regis subditos
iudicantes. Et quia magnates terrae sic invicem excellere satagebant,
eo quod nullus in alterum habebat imperium, mox inter se disceptantes
rapinis et incendiis clarissimas regiones corruperunt, in tantum quod
omne robur panis fere deperiit.” Walt. Hemingburh, vulgo Gisseburne,
i. 74. “Castella quippe studio partium per singulas provincias
surrexerant crebra; erantque in Anglia tot quodammodo reges, vel
potius tyranni, quot castellorum domini, habentes singuli percussuram
proprii numismatis, et potestatem dicendi subditis regio more iura.”
Annal. Trivet. 1147, p. 25. The contemporary Saxon chronicler gives
the most frightful account of the tyrannous exactions of the
castellans, and the tortures they inflicted on the defenceless
cultivators. And this miserable condition of the country is only too
obvious in the words with which the contemporary author of the life of
Stephen commences his work. Gest. Stephani, p. 1 _seq._ Nor can this
surprise us, when we learn that at this period not less than eleven
hundred and fifteen castles had been built in England. Rog. Wendov.
an. 1153, Coxe’s edit. ii. 256.
-----
In addition to the natural mode by which the authority of a lord became
established in a town built on his demesne, the privileges of lordship
were occasionally transferred from one person to another. Like other
royalties, the rights of the crown over taxation, tolls or other
revenues, might be made matter of grant. The following document
illustrates the manner in which a portion of the seigneurial rights was
thus alienated in favour of the bishop of Worcester. It is a grant made
by Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd to their friend Werfrið, about the end of the
ninth century[811].
-----
Footnote 811:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1075.
-----
“To Almighty God, true Unity and holy Trinity in heaven, be praise and
glory and rendering of thanks, for all his benefits bestowed upon us!
Firstly for whose love, and for St. Peter’s and the church at Worcester,
and at the request of Werfrið the bishop, their friend, Æðelrǽd the
ealdorman and Æðelflǽd commanded the _burh_ at Worcester to be built,
and eke God’s praise to be there upraised. And now they make known by
this charter that of all the rights which appertain to their lordship,
both in market and in street, within the byrig and without, they grant
half to God and St. Peter and the lord of the church; that those who are
in the place may be the better provided, that they may thereby in some
sort easier aid the brotherhood, and that their remembrance may be the
firmer kept in mind, in the place, as long as God’s service is done
within the minster. And Werfrið the bishop and his flock have appointed
this service, before the daily one, both during their lives and after,
to sing at matins, vespers and ‘undernsong,’ the psalm De Profundis,
during their lives; and after their death, Laudate Dominum; and every
Saturday, in St. Peter’s church, thirty psalms, and a mass for them
whether alive or dead. Æðelrǽd and Æðelflǽd proclaim, that they have
thus granted with good-will to God and St. Peter, under witness of
Ælfred the king and all the _witan_ in Mercia; excepting that the
wain-shilling and load-penny[812] are to go to the king’s hand, as they
always did, from Saltwíc: but as for everything else, as
_landfeoh_[813], _fihtwite_, _stalu_, _wohceápung_, and all the customs
from which any fine may arise, let the lord of the church have half of
it, for God’s sake and St. Peter’s, as it was arranged about the market
and the streets; and without the marketplace, let the bishop enjoy his
rights, as of old our predecessors decreed and privileged. And Æðelrǽd
and Æðelflǽd did this by witness of Ælfred the king, and by witness of
those witan of the Mercians whose names stand written hereafter; and in
the name of God Almighty they abjure all their successors never to
diminish these alms which they have granted to the church for God’s love
and St. Peter’s!”
-----
Footnote 812:
There can be no doubt that Wǽnscilling, written erroneously in the MS.
þægnsilling, is what is meant by _statio_ et _inoneratio plaustrorum_
in another charter. Cod. Dipl. No. 1066. It is custom or toll upon the
standing and loading of the salt-waggons. See p. 71 of this volume.
Footnote 813:
_Landfeoh_, land-fee, probably a recognitory rent for land held under
the burh or city. _Fihtwíte_, fine for brawling in the city. _Stalu_,
fine or mulct for theft. _Wohceápung_, fine for buying or selling
contrary to the rules of the market.
-----
A valuable instrument is this, and one which supplies matter for
reflection in various ways. The royalties conveyed are however alone
what must occupy our attention here. These are, a land-tax, paid no
doubt from every hide which belonged to the jurisdiction of the
burhgeréfa, and which was thus probably levied beyond the city walls, in
small outlying hamlets and villages, which were not included in any
territorial hundred, but did suit and service to the burhmót. And next
we find the lord in possession of what we should now call the police,
inflicting fines for breaches of the peace, theft, and contravention of
the regulations laid down for the conduct of the market. And this market
in Worcester was not the people’s, but the king’s, seeing that not only
are the bishop’s rights, beyond its limits, carefully distinguished, but
that Æðelred grants half the customs within it, that is, half the tolls
and taxes, to the bishop. In this way was an authority established
concurrent with the king’s or duke’s, and exercised no doubt by the
biscopes geréfa, as the royal right was by the cyninges or ealdormannes
burhgeréfa. Nor were its results unfavourable to the prosperity of the
city: there is evidence on the contrary that in process of time, the
people and their bishop came to a very good understanding, and that the
Metropolis of the West grew to be a wealthy, powerful and flourishing
place: so much so that, when in the year 1041 Hardacnut attempted to
levy some illegal or unpopular tax, the citizens resisted, put the royal
commissioners to death, and assumed so determined an attitude of
rebellion, that a large force of _Húscarlas_ and _Hereban_, under the
principal military chiefs of England, was found necessary to reduce
them. Florence of Worcester, who relates the occurrence in detail[814],
says that the city was burnt and plundered. From his narrative it seems
not improbable that the whole outbreak was connected with the removal of
a popular bishop from his see in the preceding year.
-----
Footnote 814:
1041. “Hoc anno rex Anglorum Hardecanutus suos huscarlas misit per
omnes regni sui provincias ad exigendum quod indixerat tributum. Ex
quibus duos, Feader scilicet et Turstan, Wigornenses provinciales cum
civibus, seditione exorta, in cuiusdam turris Wigornensis monasterii
solario, quo celandi causa confugerant, quarto Nonas Maii, feria
secunda peremerunt. Unde rex ira commotus, ob ultionem necis illorum,
Thurum Mediterraneorum, Leofricum Merciorum, Godwinum Westsaxonum,
Siwardum Northimbrorum, Ronum Magesetensium, et caeteros totius
Angliae comites, omnesque ferme suos huscarlas, cum magno exercitu ...
illo misit; mandans ut omnes viros, si possint, occiderent, civitatem
depraedatam incenderent, totamque provinciam devastarent. Qui, die
veniente secundo Iduum Novembrium, et civitatem et provinciam
devastare coeperunt, idque per quatuor dies agere non cessaverunt: sed
paucos vel e civibus vel provincialibus ceperunt aut occiderunt, quia
praecognito adventu eorum, provinciales quoque locorum fugerant.
Civium vero multitudo in quandam modicam insulam, in medio Sabrinae
fluminis sitam, quae Beverege nuncupatur, confugerant; et munitione
facta, tam diu se viriliter adversus suos inimicos defenderunt, quoad
pace recuperata, libere domum licuerit eis redire. Quinta igitur die,
civitate cremata, unusquisque magna cum praeda rediit in sua; et regis
statim quievit ira.” Flor. Wig. 1041.
-----
There is another important document of nearly the same period as the
grant to Werfrið, by which Eádweard the son of Ælfred gave all the royal
rights of jurisdiction in Taunton to the see of Winchester[815]. He
freed the land from every burthen, except the universal three, whether
they were royal, fiscal, comitial or other secular taxations: he granted
that all the bishop’s men, noble or ignoble, resiant upon the aforesaid
land, should have every privilege and right which was enjoyed by the
king’s men, resiant in his royal fiscs[816], and that all secular
jurisdiction should be administered for the bishop’s benefit, as fully
as it was elsewhere executed for the king’s. Moreover he attached for
ever to Winchester the market-tolls (“villae mercimonium, quod anglice
ðæs túnes cýping adpellatur”), together with every civic _census_, tax
or payment. Whatsoever had heretofore been the king’s was henceforth to
belong to the bishop of Winchester. And that these were valuable rights,
producing a considerable income, must be concluded from the large
estates which bishop Denewulf and his chapter thought it advisable to
give the king in exchange, and which comprised no less than sixty hides
of land in several parcels. The bishops, it is to be presumed,
henceforth governed Taunton by their own geréfa, to whom the grant
itself must be construed to have conveyed plenary jurisdiction, that is
the _blut-ban_ or _ius gladii_, the supreme criminal as well as civil
justice.
-----
Footnote 815:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1084. Anno 904.
Footnote 816:
Lands held immediately of the king, and administered by his own
officers. People resident about the royal vills.
-----
These examples will suffice to show in what manner seigneurial rights
grew up in certain towns, and how they were exercised. From the account
thus given we may also see the difference which existed between such a
city and one founded originally upon a system of free gylds. These
associations placed the men of London in a position to maintain their
own rights both against king and bishop, and indeed it is evident from
the ‘Judicia Civitatis’ itself, that the bishops united with the
citizens in the establishment of their free communa under Æðelstán. We
are not very clearly informed what was the earliest mode of government
in London; but, from a law of Hloðhære, it is probable that it was
presided over by a royal reeve, in the seventh century. The sixteenth
chapter of that prince’s law provides that, when a man of Kent makes any
purchase in Lundenwíc, he is to have the testimony of two or three
credible men, or of the king’s wícgeréfa[817]. In the ninth century,
when Kent and its confederation had passed into the hands of the royal
family of the Gewissas, London may possibly have vindicated some portion
of independence. It had previously lain within the nominal limits at
least of the Mercian authority[818]: but the victories of Ecgberht and
the subsequent invasions of the Northmen destroyed the Mercian power,
and in all likelihood left the city to provide for itself and its own
freedom. We know that it suffered severely in those invasions, but we
have slight record of any attempt to relieve it from their assaults,
which might imply an interest in its welfare, on the part of any
particular power. In the year 886 however, we learn, Ælfred, victorious
on every point, turned his attention to London, whose fortifications he
rebuilt, and which he re-annexed to Mercia, now constituted as a duchy
under Æðelred[819]. On the death of this prince, Eádweard seized Oxford
and London into his own hands, and it is reasonable to suppose that he
governed these cities by burhgeréfan of his own[820]. But very shortly
after we find the important document, which I have already mentioned,
the so-called ‘Judicia Civitatis,’ or Dooms of London, which proves
clearly enough the elasticity of a great trading community, the
readiness with which a city like London could recover its strength, and
the vigour with which its mixed population could carry out their plans
of self-government and independent existence. Henceforward we find the
citizens for the most part under portgeréfan or portreeves of their
own[821], to whom the royal writs are directed, as in counties they are
to the sheriffs. We must not however suppose that at this early period
constitutional rights were so perfectly settled as to be beyond the
possibility of infringement. Circumstances, whose record now escapes us,
may sometimes have occurred which abridged the franchise of particular
cities: we cannot conclude that the Portgeréfa was always freely elected
by the citizens; for in some places we hear of “royal” portreeves[822],
from which it may be argued either that the king had made the
appointment by his own authority, or, what is far from improbable, that
he had concurred with the citizens in the election. Moreover the
direction of writs to noblemen of high rank, even in London, seems to
imply that, on some occasions, either the king had succeeded in seizing
the liberties of the city into his own hand, or that the elected
officers were sometimes taken from the class of powerful ministerials,
having high rank and station in the royal household[823]. Where there
existed clubs or gylds of the free citizens, we may also believe that
similar associations were established by the lords and their dependents,
either as a means of balancing the popular power, or at least of sharing
in the benefits of an association which secured the rights and position
of the free men; and thus, the same document which reveals to us the
existence of the “Ingang burhware” or “burghers’ club” of Canterbury,
tells us also of the “Cnihta gyld,” or “Sodality of young nobles” in the
same city[824].
-----
Footnote 817:
Leg. Hloð. § 16. Thorpe, i. 34.
Footnote 818:
Asser considers London to belong locally to Essex: he states that the
Danes plundered it in 851. Vit. Ælfr. _in anno_. Berhtwulf of Mercia
made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve it; so that it must be
considered to have been a Mercian town at that period. Later it seems
to have been left to itself, till Ælfred restored it in 886.
Footnote 819:
“Gesette Ælfred cyning Lundenburg ... and he ða befæste ða burg
Æðerede aldormen tó healdanne.” Chron. Sax. an. 880. “Eodem anno
Ælfred, Angulsaxonum rex, post incendia urbium, stragesque populorum,
Londoniam civitatem honorifice restauravit, et habitabilem fecit: quam
generi suo Æðeredo, Merciorum comiti, commendavit servandam.” Asser,
Vit. Ælf. an. 886. In 880 the Danes wintered at Fulham, and may then
have ruined London, if they had not done so before.
Footnote 820:
Chron. Sax. an. 912.
Footnote 821:
Swétman, portgeréfa. Cod. Dipl. No. 857. Ælfsige, ibid. Nos. 858, 861.
Ulf. ibid. No. 872. The first mayor of London was elected probably in
1187. See Lib. de Ant. Legib. p. 1 _seq._
Footnote 822:
“Cyninges geréfa binnan port,” the king’s reeve within the city. Leg.
Æðelst. iii. § 7; iv. § 3. Canterbury appears to have had both a
cyninges geréfa and a portgeréfa. The signatures of both these
officers are appended to the same instrument. Cod. Dipl. No. 789.
Footnote 823:
The document De Institutis Londoniae, which is considered to date from
the time of Æðelræd, that is the commencement of the eleventh century,
gives the fine for burhbryce to the king; and inflicts a further bót
of thirty shillings, for the benefit of the city, if the king will
grant it, “si rex hoc concedat nobis.” Inst. Lond. § 4. Thorpe, i.
301.
Footnote 824:
Cod. Dipl. No. 293.
-----
Two points necessarily arrest our attention in considering the case of
every city; the first of these is the internal organization, on which
the freedom of the inhabitants itself depends: the second is the
relation the city stands in to the public law, that is to say, its
particular position toward the state. The Anglosaxon laws do contain a
few provisions destined to regulate the intercourse between the
townspeople and the country: for example we may refer to the laws which
regulate the number of mints allowed to each city. In the tenth century
it was settled that each burh might have one,—and from this very fact it
is clear that “burh” was then a legal term having a fixed and definite
meaning,—while a few cities were favoured with a larger number. The
names of the places so distinguished are preserved, and from the
regulations affecting them in this respect we may form a conclusion as
to their comparative importance. Under Æðelstân we find the following
arrangement:—At Canterbury were to be seven moneyers; four for the king,
two for the bishop, one for the abbot. At Rochester three; two for the
king, one for the bishop. At London eight. At Winchester six. At Lewes,
Hampton, Wareham, Exeter and Shaftsbury, two moneyers to each town. At
Hastings, Chichester, and at the other burhs, one to each town[825].
-----
Footnote 825:
Leg. Æðelst. i. § 14. Thorpe, i. 206.
-----
It is right to observe that all these places are in Æðelstán’s peculiar
kingdom, south of the Thames, and that his legislation takes no notice
of the Mercian, Eastanglian or Northumbrian territories. But half a
century later, it was ordered that no man should have a mint save the
king, and that any person who wrought money without the precincts of a
burh, should be liable to the penalties of forgery. The inconvenience of
this was however too great, and by the ‘Instituta Londoniae,’ each
principal city (“summus portus”) was permitted to have three, and every
other burh one moneyer[826].
-----
Footnote 826:
Leg. Æðelr. iii. § 8, 16; iv. § 5, 9. Thorpe, i. 296, 298, 301, 303.
-----
Again, the difficulty of guarding against theft, especially in respect
to cattle, the universal vice of a semi-civilized people,—led to more
than one attempt to prohibit all buying and selling except in towns; and
this of itself seems to imply that they were numerously distributed over
the face of the country. But this provision, however beneficial to the
lords of such towns, was too contrary to the general convenience, and
seems to have been soon relinquished as impracticable. The enactments on
the subject appear to have been abrogated almost as soon as made[827]:
but the machinery by which it was proposed to carry their provisions
into effect are of considerable interest. In each burh, according to its
size, a certain number of the townspeople were to be elected, who might
act as witnesses in every case of bargain and sale,—whom both parties on
occasion would be bound to call to warranty, and whose decision or
_veredictum_ in the premises would be final. It was intended that in
every larger burh (“summus portus”) there should be thirty-three such
elective officers, and in every hundred twelve or more, by whose witness
every bargain was to be sanctioned, whether in a burh or a wapentake.
They were to be bound by oath to the faithful discharge of their duty.
The law of Eádgár says: “Let every one of them, on his first election as
a witness, take an oath that, neither for profit, nor fear, nor favour,
will he ever deny that which he did witness, nor affirm aught but what
he did see and hear. And let there be two or three such sworn men as
witnesses to every bargain[828].”
-----
Footnote 827:
Leg. Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 12, 13; iii. § 2; v. § 10. Thorpe, i.
158, 206, 218, 240.
Footnote 828:
Leg. Eádgár. Supp. § 3, 4, 5. Thorpe, i. 274.
-----
The words of this law seem to imply that the appointment was to be a
permanent one; and it is only natural to suppose that these “geǽðedan
men,” _jurati_, or jurors, would become by degrees a settled urban
magistracy. We see in them the germ of a municipal institution, a sworn
corporation, assessors in some degree of the geréfa or the later
mayor[829]. They were evidently the “boni et legales homines,” the
“testes credibiles,” “ða gódan men,” “dohtigan men,” and so forth, of
various documents, the “Scabini,” “Schoppen” or “Echevins,” so familiar
to us in the history of mediæval towns, which had any pretensions to
freedom. They necessarily constituted a magistracy, and gradually became
the centre round which the rights and privileges of the municipality
clustered.
-----
Footnote 829:
“Hoc anno [A.D. 1200] fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis,
et iurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.” Lib. de Antiq.
Legib. _in anno_.
-----
It is to be regretted that we have so little record of the internal
organization of these municipal bodies, which must nevertheless have
existed during the flourishing period of the Anglosaxon rule. Of
Ealdormen in the towns, and in our modern sense, there naturally is, and
could be, no trace: that dignity was very different from anything like
the geréfscipe of a city, however wealthy and influential this might be:
but the ‘Instituta Londoniae’ mention one or two subordinate officers:
in these, beside the Portgeréfa, Burhgeréfa or Wícgeréfa,—names which
all appear to denote one officer, the “praepositus civitatis,”—we are
told of a Túngeréfa, who had a right to enquire into the payment of the
customs[830]; and also of a Caccepol, catch-poll or beadle, who appears
to have been the collector[831].
-----
Footnote 830:
Inst. Lond. § 3. Thorpe, i. 301.
Footnote 831:
Ibid.
-----
The archæologist, not less than the historian, has reason to lament
that no remains from the past survive to teach us the local
distribution of an Anglosaxon town. Yet some few hints are
nevertheless supplied which enable us to form a faint image of what it
may have been. It is probable that the different trades occupied
different portions of the area, which portions were named from the
occupations of their inhabitants. In the middle ages these several
parts of the city were often fortified and served as strongholds,
behind whose defences, or sallying forth from which, the crafts fought
the battle of democracy against the burgesses or the neighbouring
lords. We have evidence that streets, which afterwards did, and do
yet, bear the names of particular trades or occupations, were equally
so designated before the Norman conquest, in several of our English
towns. It is thus only that we can account for such names as
Fellmonger, Horsemonger and Fleshmonger, Shoewright and Shieldwright,
Tanner and Salter Streets, and the like, which have long ceased to be
exclusively tenanted by the industrious pursuers of those several
avocations. Let us place a cathedral and a guildhall with its belfry
in the midst of these, surround them with a circuit of walls and
gates, and add to them the common names of North, South, East and
West, or Northgate, Southgate, Eastgate and Westgate Streets,—here and
there let us fix the market and its cross, the dwellings of the bishop
and his clergy, the houses of the queen and perhaps the courtiers, of
the principal administrative officers and of the leading
burghers[832],—above all, let us build a stately fortress, to overawe
or to defend the place, to be the residence of the geréfa and his
garrison, and the site of the courts of justice,—and we shall have at
least a plausible representation of a principal Anglosaxon city. Much
as it is to be regretted that we now possess no ancient maps or plans
which would have thrown a valuable light upon this subject, yet the
guidance here and there supplied by the names of the streets
themselves, and the foundations of ancient buildings yet to be traced
in them, coupled with fragmentary notices in the chroniclers, do
sometimes enable us to catch glimpses as it were of this history of
the past. The giant march of commercial prosperity has crumbled into
dust almost every trace of what our brave and good forefathers looked
upon with pardonable pride: but the principles which animated them,
still in a great degree regulate the lives of us their descendants;
and if we exult in the conviction that our free municipal institutions
are the safeguard of some of our most cherished liberties, let us
remember those to whom we owe them, and study to transmit unimpaired
to our posterity an inheritance which we have derived from so remote
an ancestry.
-----
Footnote 832:
The not unfrequent occurrence of such names as Kinggate, Queengate and
Bishopgate Street, imply something of this kind: for we cannot suppose
such names to have been assigned capriciously or without sufficient
cause. It is likely that the streets so called led to the dwellings
and were literally the property of the several parties: that is, that
offences committed upon them belonged to the several jurisdictions.
-----
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BISHOP.
Whatever variety of form the heathendom of the Anglosaxons may have
assumed in different districts, we are justified in asserting that a
sacerdotal class existed, and that there were different grades of rank
within it. We hear of priests, and of chief priests; and it is not
unnatural to conclude that to the latter some pre-eminence in dignity,
if not in power, was conceded over their less-distinguished colleagues.
Similarly, the necessities of internal government and regulation, and
the analogy of secular administration, had gradually supplied the
Christian communities with a well-organized system of hierarchy, which
commencing with the lower ministerial functions, passed upward through
the presbyterate, the episcopal and metropolitan ordinations, and found
its culminating point and completion in the patriarchates of the eastern
and western churches. The paganism of the Old World, which admitted the
participation of different classes in the public rites of religion, if
it did not cause, could at least easily reconcile itself to, this
systematic division. Our own heathen state is not well known enough to
enable us to affirm as much of our forefathers; but the immediate
foundation of an episcopal church in all the newly-converted Teutonic
countries, seems to show that no difficulty existed or was apprehended
as to its ready reception. In England, as elsewhere, the introduction of
Christianity was immediately followed by the establishment of bishops.
But it is necessary to draw a distinction between the effects of this
establishment in England and in various parts of the continent. As we
pursue the inquiries which necessarily meet us in investigating the
history of conversion in the West, we are led to a remarkable fact, viz.
that the power of the Roman see was, generally speaking, most
substantially founded by the efforts and energy of Teutonic prelates;
while a much more steady opposition to its triumph was offered by the
provincials who usually filled the episcopal office in the cities of
Gaul.
The apparent strangeness of this however soon vanishes, when we consider
the many grounds upon which the Gallic churches contested the immediate
supremacy of Rome. The archbishop of Vienne long claimed the patriarchal
authority in Gaul, upon the same grounds as the bishops of Rome and
Constantinople claimed it in those cities[833]. Many of the provincial
churches boasted an antiquity hardly inferior to the Roman, and a
foundation not less illustrious; many had shown in persecution and
suffering a spirit of Christian perseverance and a steadfastness of
faith, which the City itself had not exceeded in her own hour of trial.
Above all, there continued to exist a vigorous nationality in Gaul,
however oppressed and bridled by the energy of the Frankish conquerors,
especially in Neustria or the northern portion of modern France. To this
spirit of nationality, based upon ancient descent and long familiarity
with the civilization of the Roman empire, and fed in turn by a great
amount of material prosperity, we must refer the complete dissolution of
the Carolingian empire itself, and the establishment of the counts of
Paris as kings in the western districts of that unwieldy body.
-----
Footnote 833:
Hüllmann, ‘Origine de l’organisation de l’Eglise au Moyen Age,’ p. 30.
-----
It is true that the Western Church did not lay definite claim to any
such total independence as Cyprian vindicated for his African
communities: the good offices and arbitration of St. Peter’s successor
were sought in disputed and doubtful cases, even if we cannot admit of
positive appeals to the Roman curia: the bishops of Burgundy, Provence
and Spain, early found that union with the oldest and most respected
church of the West offered an important defence of orthodoxy threatened
by the Arian and semi-Arian dogma of the barbarians who had wrested
those fine provinces from the empire: and the popes were not unwilling
to encourage a tendency which helped to realize the idea of a
pre-eminence in their church over all the Christian communities.[834]
The institution of Missi, or special commissioners, was familiar: they
adopted it, and at a very early period we find papal vicars exercising
some sort of authority in Gaul, and perhaps even in Britain.
-----
Footnote 834:
This was strongly asserted by Romanus against Cyprian, and never lost
sight of by the Roman controversialists, whatever opposition it
encountered in other churches. But while Rome really was the first
city of the world, it was consonant to the analogy of the other
episcopal relations that her prelate should claim the primacy. The
founding it either on St. Peter’s peculiar principality, or on
pretended decrees of the Roman emperors, was quite a different thing,
and an afterthought.
-----
The conversion of Clovis to the orthodox faith, instead of that which he
might have learned from his Arian neighbours, was not only a source of
power and importance to the Catholic bishops of Gaul, but ultimately of
the greatest moment to the bishop of Rome. We must admit that under the
Merwingian kings, the popes enjoyed some authority and great
consideration in Gaul, though not enough to endanger the independence
and freedom of the Gallican church: but under the family of Pipin they
necessarily occupied a very different position. For during the earlier
years of the imperial constitution, Rome was a city, and its bishop to a
certain extent an officer, of the empire, and the power and influence of
the popes was advanced by the Frankish emperor as best might suit his
own purposes. It is assuredly not true that under Charlemagne those
bishops ventured upon any of the usurpations which they succeeded in
substantiating under later emperors.
During the reign of Hluduuig indeed, a pious but weak prince, they
obtained various concessions which in process of time bore fruit of
power[835]. It was reserved for later days to witness the triumph of
Roman independence through the combination of communal with priestly
tendencies. This combination first darkly arose when the nationality of
Rome itself burst forth, encouraged by the vigour with which the bishop
made head against the invading Saracens in Italy, supported the orthodox
prelates of the southern kingdoms, Arles, Burgundy and Spain against
Arian dukes and governors, and regulated the internal affairs of the
city, neglected by its Frankish patricians and missi. At this time too
Rome had no competitor: Africa had fallen, Constantinople had abdicated
her imperial position, the cities and the sees of the East had vanished
together; Rome—at least one of the oldest—was now unquestionably the
most powerful of the Christian churches. She had all the prestige of the
old empire, and all the support of the new one which she had helped to
found upon the ruins of the old.
-----
Footnote 835:
But, as yet, no independence. Pope Paschal in 823, being accused by
the Romans of participation in various homicides, Hluduuig sent his
Missi,—Adalung a presbyter and abbot, and Hunfrid duke of Rhætia (or
Coire) to investigate the affair. Paschal appeared before them, and
cleared himself by oath. “Qui supradictus Pontifex cum iuramento
purificavit se in Lateranensi patriarchio coram supradictis legatis et
populo Romano, cum episcopis 34, et presbyteris et diaconibus
quinque.” Thegan. Vit. Hludov. Imp. Pertz, ii. 597.
-----
But this gradual advance and this commanding power could not at first
have been contemplated. It is a common error to suppose that great
results, which seem necessarily produced by a long series of combined
causes, have from the first been prepared and foreseen. The spectator in
his own struggle after a logical unity rejects the accidental and
accessory facts, to fix his eyes upon the apparently essential
development; and supposes everything to have been grasped together,
because his intellect cannot conceive the whole variety of occurrences
without so grasping them. The relations of Rome with the Franks were
hardly the consequence of any deliberate or well-considered plan. The
Frankish kings had been selected as patrons merely because they could
afford the protection which was looked for in vain from Constantinople,
or indeed any other quarter; and had Italy not been overrun by Germanic
invaders of various race, from whose power there seemed no refuge, save
in other and still more barbarous Germanic defenders, the Western empire
might never have been restored: but when once it was so restored,—from
the moment when Pope Leo and the Roman municipality agreed to place the
command of the city, and the rights of the ancient Caesars, in the hands
of a barbarian king,—but one capable of appreciating and securing all
the advantages of his great position,—Rome itself became not only
identified with the new views, but necessary to their fulfilment[836].
Had the new emperor been a Roman, or had he selected Rome as his
residence, and thus made it the local as well as real and political
centre of his power, the Papacy would probably never have attained its
territorial authority. But the Frankish king remained true to the habits
of his people and of his predecessors, resided in peaceful times at
Ingleheim or Aix la Chapelle, and spent years in wandering from one
royal vill to another, or in the duties of active warfare upon the
several confines of his empire; and thus the government of the eternal
city practically fell into the hands of Frankish officers, dukes, missi,
counts palatine, and ministerials, who gradually proved no match for the
enlightened skill, unwearied diplomacy and increasing power of the
pontiffs, the Roman aristocratic families, and the resuscitated
municipality: yet the popes had hardly succeeded in attaining to a
complete independence of the German Caesars, when the son of Hugues,
called Capet, expelled the last Caroling from the soil of France; though
in the course of a policy long inexorably pursued, they had gone far to
prepare for a dismemberment of the empire which was to be of more
important consequence to the world than even that separation[837]. In
956—the year in which Eádwig, the mark of monkish calumny, came to the
throne of England, the Patrician Octavian, son of Alberic of Spoleto,
and through him grandson of the scandalous Marozia, caused himself to be
elected Pope; and thus united the highest worldly and spiritual
authorities in the city, concentrating in his own person all the rights
both of the empire and the papacy[838].
-----
Footnote 836:
No sooner was Charlemagne crowned as emperor by Leo III. (Dec. 20th,
800) than he caused an oath of fidelity to be administered to all his
subjects who were above the age of twelve years. See on this subject
Dönniges, p. 2, etc. He thus obtained all the rights of the ancient
emperors over the church and the Roman provincials, in addition to the
powers as a German king, which in his vigorous hands assumed a
consistency and compass unknown to his predecessors. Charlemagne
required all the aid of the Pope against the great Frankish families,
who might have given him a mayor of the palace, as they had given his
own progenitors to the Merwingian kings. The following important
passage will show in what spirit he considered the imperial authority
which he had assumed, “A.D. 802. Eo anno demoravit domnus Caesar
Carolus apud Aquis palatium quietus cum Francis sine hoste; sed
recordatus misericordiae suae de pauperibus, qui in regno suo erant et
iustitias suas pleniter [h]abere non poterant, noluit de infra palatio
pauperiores vassos suos transmittere ad iustitias faciendum propter
munera, sed elegit in regno suo archiepiscopos et reliquos episcopos
et abbates cum ducibus et comitibus, qui iam opus non [h]abebant super
innocentes munera accipere, et ipsos misit per universum regnum suum,
ut ecclesiis, viduis et orfanis et pauperibus, et cuncto populo
iustitiam facerent. Et mense Octimbrio congregavit universalem synodum
in iam nominato loco, et ibi fecit episcopis cum presbyteris seu
diaconibus relegi universos canones quas sanctus synodus recepit, et
decreta pontificum, et pleniter iussit eos tradi coram omnibus
episcopis, presbyteris et diaconibus. Similiter in ipso synodo
congregavit universos abbates et monachos qui ibi aderant, et ipsi
inter se conventum faciebant, et legerunt regulam sancti patris
Benedicti, et eam tradiderunt sapientes in conspectu abbatum et
monachorum; et tunc iussu eius generaliter super omnes episcopos,
abbates, presbyteros, diaconos seu universo clero facta est, ut
unusquisque in loco suo iuxta constitutionem sanctorum patrum, sive in
episcopatibus seu in monasteriis aut per universas sanctas ecclesias,
ut canonici, iuxta canones viverent, et quicquid in clero aut in
populo de culpis aut de negligentiis apparuerit, iuxta canonum
auctoritate emendassent; et quicquid in monasteriis seu in monachis
contra regulam sancti Benedicti factum fuisset, hoc ipsud iuxta ipsam
regulam sancti Benedicti emendare fecissent. Sed et ipse imperator,
interim quod ipsum synodum factum est, congregavit duces, comites et
reliquo christiano populo cum legislatoribus, et fecit omnes leges in
regno suo legi, et tradi unicuique homini legem suam, et emendare
ubicumque necesse fuit, et emendatam legem scribere, et ut iudices per
scriptum iudicassent, et munera non accepissent; sed omnes homines,
pauperes et divites, in regno suo iustitiam habuissent.” Annal.
Lauresham, xxv. Pertz, i. 38. In the theory of that great man, the
imperial title was no empty name.
Footnote 837:
A.D. 987. See Dönniges, p. 197 _seq._ Thierry, Lettres sur l’Histoire
de France, let. xii.
Footnote 838:
Since A.D. 924 there had been in fact no Emperor of Germany, and the
empire itself might seem to have been resolved anew into its original
and discordant elements. From the year 904, when the elder Theodora
succeeded in placing Sergius the Third upon the papal throne, the
faction of that profligate woman and her daughters had completely
disposed of all the dignities of the city, and the bed of the
Theodoras or Marozia was the best introduction to the Chair of St.
Peter.
-----
Three hundred and sixty years earlier, Gregory, then bishop of Rome, had
despatched a missionary adventure to this country.
The zeal of modern polemics has dealt more hardly with Gregory than
justice demands[839]. Who shall dare to attribute to him, or to any
other man, entire freedom from human error, or total absence of those
faults which, for the very happiness of man, are found to chequer the
most perfect of human characters? But even if we admit that he shared,
to not less than the usual degree, in the weakness and selfishness of
our nature, it is impossible to withhold the meed of our admiration from
the man whose intellect could combine, whose prudence could direct, and
whose courage could cope with, all the details of a conversion such as
that of Saxon England. Let us only consider the circumstances under
which he found himself placed at home, and we shall the better
comprehend the power of mind which could devise and execute the vast
design of a spiritual colonization, a transplantation of religion as it
were from Rome the centre, to Britain the extreme, the least known, and
most barbarous point of the ancient empire[840]. Temporal as well as
spiritual ruler of the city, abandoned by those miserable intriguers who
inherited from the emperors nothing but their title and their vices, and
pressed on every side by the vigorous advance of the Langobardic arms,
it was Gregory’s fate or fortune to pass in the midst of political
excitement a life which he had hoped to devote to pious meditation. But
he possessed a character capable of moulding itself to all the
exigencies of his situation; whether reluctantly or not, he flung
himself into the gap, and comprehended, with a perfect singleness of
insight, that to whom belongs the post of greatest honour, on him lies
also the burthen of the greatest toil and greatest danger. By turns
soldier, captain, negotiator, and priest,—now wielding the pen to
instruct, now the sword to protect or to chastise,—now pouring
passionate exhortations from his pulpit, now providing for the resources
of his commissariat, or superintending the builders engaged on the
material defences of his walls,—we see in him one of those men whom
troublous times have often educated to cope with themselves, and whose
names have thus justly become the very landmarks and pivots of history.
-----
Footnote 839:
See Soames, Anglos. Church, p. 40 _seq._, and Latin Church during
Anglos. Times, p. 12 _seq._, 19 _seq._ On the other side, Schrödl, Das
erste Jahrhundert der Englischen Kirche, p. 10 _seq._
Footnote 840:
It must not be forgotten that the Southerns shuddered at the Saxons,
as the most savage and barbarous of all the Germanic tribes. However
unjust the opinion might be, it was the fashionable one at Rome.
-----
A great writer, who sometimes suffers his hostility against Christianity
and its professors to outweigh the calmer judgment of the historian, has
left us this graphic account of the condition of Rome at the end of the
sixth century[841].
-----
Footnote 841:
Gibbon, Dec. and Fall, chapter 45.
-----
“Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of the Greeks,
we again inquire into the fate of Rome[842], which had reached, about
the close of the sixth century, the lowest period of her depression. By
the removal of the seat of empire, and the successive loss of the
provinces, the sources of public and private opulence were exhausted;
the lofty tree, under whose shade the nations of the earth had reposed,
was deprived of its leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left
to wither on the ground. The ministers of command and the messengers of
victory no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian Way, and the hostile
approach of the Lombards was often felt and continually feared. The
inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who visit without an
anxious thought the garden of the adjoining country, will faintly
picture in their fancy the distress of the Romans; they shut or opened
their gates with a trembling hand, beheld from the walls the flames of
their houses, and heard the lamentations of their brethren, who were
coupled together like dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery beyond
the sea and the mountains. Such incessant alarms must annihilate the
pleasures and interrupt the labours of a rural life; and the Campagna of
Rome was speedily reduced to the state of a dreary wilderness, in which
the land is barren, the waters are impure, and the air is infectious.
Curiosity and ambition no longer attracted the nations to the capital of
the world: but if chance or necessity directed the steps of a wandering
stranger, he contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the
city, and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are
the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tiber swelled above its
banks, and rushed with irresistible violence into the valleys of the
seven hills. A pestilential disease arose from the stagnation of the
deluge, and so rapid was the contagion, that fourscore persons expired
in an hour in the midst of a solemn procession, which implored the mercy
of heaven[843]. A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry
prevails, soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war; but
as the far greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless
indigence and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and visible, and
the gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching failure of the human
race[844].”
-----
Footnote 842:
“The passages of the Homilies of Gregory, which represent the
miserable state of the city and country, are transcribed in the Annals
of Baronius, A.D. 590, No. 16; A.D. 595, No. 2. etc.”
Footnote 843:
“The inundation and plague were reported by a deacon, whom his bishop,
Gregory of Tours, had despatched to Rome for some relics. The
ingenious messenger embellished his tale and the river with a great
dragon and a train of little serpents.” Greg. Turon. lib. x. cap. 1.
Footnote 844:
“Gregory of Rome (Dialog. l. ii. c. 15) relates a memorable prediction
of St. Benedict. ‘Roma a gentilibus non exterminabitur sed
tempestatibus, coruscis turbinibus et terrae motu in semetipsa
marcescet.’ Such a prophecy melts into true history, and becomes the
evidence of the fact after which it was invented.”
-----
It was in the midst of scenes such as these that Gregory found time to
organize the mission of Augustine to Britain. In the absence of definite
information, derived from his own account, or the relations of his
friends and contemporaries, it is impossible to penetrate the motives
which led the pontiff to this step. They have been variously interpreted
by the zeal of opposing historians, who have construed them by the light
of their own prejudices, in favour of the conflicting interests of their
respective churches. Nor, with such insufficient means, do we attempt to
reconcile their differences: human motives are rarely unmixed, rarely
all good or all evil: it is possible that there may be some truth in all
the conflicting views which have been taken of this great act; that
while an earnest missionary spirit, and deep feeling of responsibility,
led the Pope to carry the blessings of an orthodox Christianity to the
distant and benighted tribes of Britain, he may have contemplated—not
without pardonable complacency—the growth of a church immediately
dependent upon his see for guidance and instruction. It may be that some
lingering whispers of vanity or ambition spoke of the increase of wealth
or dignity or power which might thus accrue to the patriarchate of the
West. Nay, who shall say that, looking round in his despair upon Rome
itself and the disject members of its once mighty empire, he may not
even have thought that England, inaccessible from its seas, and the
valour of its denizens, might one day offer a secure refuge to the last
remains of Roman faith and nationality, and their last, but not least
noble, defender?
To the pontiff and the statesman it was not unknown that the Britannic
islands were occupied by two populations different alike in their
descent and in their fortunes; the elder and the weaker, of Keltic
blood; the younger and the conquering race, an offshoot of that great
Teutonic stock, whose branches had overspread all the fairest provinces
of the empire, and had now for the most part adopted something of the
civilization, together with the profession, of Christianity. He was
aware that commercial intercourse, nay even family alliances, had
already connected the Anglosaxons with those Franks, who, in opposition
to the Arian Goths, Burgundians and Langobards, had accepted the form of
faith considered orthodox by the Roman See[845]. The British church, he
no doubt knew, in common with others which claimed to have been founded
by the Apostles[846], still retained some rites and practices which had
either never been sanctioned or were now abandoned at Rome: but still
the communion of the churches had been maintained as well as could be
expected between such distant establishments. British bishops had
appeared in the Catholic synods[847], and the church of the Keltic
aborigines reverenced with affectionate zeal the memory of the
missionaries whom it was the boast of Rome to have sent forth for her
instruction or confirmation in the faith[848]. On the other hand, it had
reached the ears of the Pope, that the Germanic conquerors themselves
yearned for the communication of the glad tidings of salvation; that
tolerance was found in at least one court,—and that, one of
preponderating influence; while an unhappy instinct of national hatred
had induced the British Christians to withhold all attempts to spread
the Gospel among their heathen neighbours[849].
-----
Footnote 845:
“I cannot bear to see the finest provinces of Gaul in the hands of
those heretics,” cried Clovis, with all the zeal of a new convert. The
clergy blessed the pious sentiment, and the orthodox barbarian was
rewarded with a series of bloody victories, which mainly tended to
establish the predominance of the Frank over all the other elements in
Gaul.
Footnote 846:
If traditions could be construed into good history, Britain was
abundantly provided with apostolical converters: Joseph of Arimathea,
Aristobulus, one of the seventy, St. Paul himself, have all had their
several supporters. Nay even St. Peter has been said to have visited
this island: Ἔπειτα [ὁ Πέτρος] ... εἰς βρεττανίαν παραγίνεται· Ἔνθα δὴ
χειροτριβήσας καὶ πολλὰ τῶν ἀκατοναμάτων ἐνθῶν εἰς τὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ
πίστιν ἐπισπασάμενος ... ἐπιμείνας τὲ τοῖς ἐν βρεττανὶᾳ ἡμέρας τινὰς,
καὶ πολλοὺς τῷ λόγῳ φωτίσας τῆς χάριτος, ἐκκλησίας τε συστησάμενος,
ἐπισκόπους τε καὶ πρεσβυτέρους καὶ διακόνους χειροτονήσας, δωδεκάτῳ
ἔτει τοῦ Καίσαρος αὖθις εἰς Ῥώμην παραγίνεται. Menolog. Graec. xvi.
Mart.
Footnote 847:
At Arles in 314, Sardica in 347, and Rimini in 359.
Footnote 848:
Not to speak of Ninian, Palladius and Patricius, we may refer to
Germanus of Auxerre, who is stated to have been sent as Papal Vicar to
England, to arrest the progress of Pelagianism, at the beginning of
the fifth century. Schrödl asserts this in the broadest terms: “Auf
Bitten der Britischen Bischöfe, und gesendet von Pabst Cölestin,
besuchte der Bischof Germanus von Auxerre in der Eigenschaft eines
päbstlichen Vicars, zweimal Britannien,” etc. Erste Jahrh. p. 2.
Lingard is somewhat less decided: he says, “Pope Celestine, at the
representation of the deacon Palladius, commissioned Germanus of
Auxerre to proceed in his name to Britain,” etc. Ang. Church, i. 8.
Both these authors refer to Prosper, in Chron. _anno_ 429. “Papa
Coelestinus Germanum Autisiodorensem episcopum _vice sua_ mittit, et
deturbatis haereticis Britannos ad Catholicam fidem dirigit.” Prosper
was not only a contemporary of the facts he relates, but at a later
period actually became secretary to Celestine: his authority therefore
is of much weight. Still it is observable that Beda, in his relation,
does not attribute the mission of Germanus to the Pope. He says, that
the Britons having applied for aid to the prelates of Gaul, these held
a great synod, and _elected_ Germanus and Lupus to proceed to England.
Hist. Eccl. i. 17. Beda’s account is taken from the life of Germanus
written by Constantius of Lyons, about forty years after the bishop’s
death. He says as little of the Vicariate in his account of the second
mission. However, even supposing Prosper, whose means of judgment were
certainly the best, to be right, it only follows that Celestine
dispatched Germanus as his Vicar, but not that the British prelates
formally received him in that capacity. It does not seem to me that
the passage contains any satisfactory proof that the Roman See enjoyed
a _right_ of appointing Vicars in England at the period in question,
however it may have desired, or tried practically, to establish one.
Footnote 849:
Beda, II. E. i. 22.
-----
Under these circumstances, in the year 596, at the very moment when the
ancient metropolis of the world seemed on the point of falling under the
yoke of the Langobards, Augustine and his forty companions set out to
carry the faith to the extreme islands of the West,—a deed as heroic as
when Scipio marched for Zama, and left the terrible Carthaginian
thundering at the gates of the city. Furnished with letters of
introduction to facilitate their passage through Gaul, where they were
to provide themselves with interpreters, and where, in the event of
success, Augustine was to receive episcopal consecration, the
adventurers finally landed in Kent, experienced a gentle reception from
Æðelberht, and obtained permission to preach the faith among his
subjects. In an incredibly short space of time—if we may credit the
earliest historian of the Anglosaxon church—their efforts were crowned
with success in the more important districts of the island; Canterbury,
Rochester and London received the distinction of episcopal sees; swarms
of energetic missionaries from Rome, from Gaul, from Burgundy, followed
on their track, eager to aid their labours, and share their triumph; and
at length the Keltic Scots themselves, emulous of their successes, or
awakened, though late, to a sense of their own culpable neglect, entered
vigorously upon the vacant field, and preached the Gospel to the pagan
tribes north of the Humber, and in the central provinces of England. The
progress of the new creed was not, however, one unchequered triumph: in
Wales and Scotland the embittered Kelts refused not only canonical
submission to the missionary archbishop, but even Catholic communion
with his neophytes[850]. In Eastanglia, Essex, nay Kent itself, apostacy
followed upon the death of the first converted kings; while Wessex
remained true to its ancient paganism; and Penda of Mercia, tolerant of
Christianity although himself no Christian, was dangerous through his
very indifference, his ambition, and the triumphs of his arms over
successive Northumbrian princes. Still the great aim of Gregory was not
to be vain, and despite kings and peoples, nay even despite the
faintheartedness and “little faith” of the missionaries, the work of
conversion did go on and prosper, until it embraced every portion of the
island, and every part of England made at least an outward profession of
Christianity.
-----
Footnote 850:
“Scottos vero per Daganum episcopum in hanc, quam superius
memoravimus, insulam (sc. Britanniam) et Columbanum abbatem in Gallis
venientem, nihil discrepare a Brittonibus in eorum conversatione
didicimus. Nam Daganus episcopus ad nos veniens, non solum cibum
nobiscum, sed nec in eodem hospitio quo vescebamur, sumere voluit.”
Such is the account Laurentius, Mellitus and Justus give in their
epistle to the Scottish prelates themselves. Beda, Hist. Eccl. ii. 4.
And the Keltic example is answered in an equally intolerant spirit by
Theodore:—“Qui ordinati sunt Scottorum vel Brittonum episcopi, qui in
Pascha vel tonsura catholicae non sunt adunati aecclesiae, iterum a
catholico episcopo manus impositione confirmentur. Licentiam quoque
non habemus _eis poscentibus_ chrisma vel eucharistiam dare, nisi ante
confessi fuerint velle nobiscum esse in unitate aecclesiae. Et qui ex
eorum similiter gente, vel quicumque de baptismo suo dubitaverit,
baptizetur.” Cap. Theod. Thorpe, ii. 64. See also Canones Sancti
Gregorii, cap. 145. Kunstmann, Poenit. p. 141.
-----
No sooner had the new creed found a reception among the Saxons than the
establishment of bishoprics followed in every separate kingdom. The
intention of Gregory had been to appoint two metropolitans, each with
twelve suffragan bishops, one having his cathedral in London, the other
in York. But political events prevented the execution of this plan:
Canterbury retained the primacy of the greater part of England, and
(except during a very few years) the rule over all the bishops on this
side the Humber; while York, after receiving an archbishop in the person
of Paulinus, remained for nearly a century after his death under a
bishop only; and never succeeded in establishing more than four
suffragan sees, which were finally reduced to two. This state of things
naturally sprang from the circumstances under which the conversion took
place. Had England been subject to one central power, or had the
relinquishment of paganism taken place simultaneously in the several
districts, a general system might have been introduced whose leading
features might have been in accordance with Gregory’s desire; but this
was not the case. The work of conversion was subject to many
difficulties which could not have been appreciated at Rome. The pope had
probably but sparing knowledge of the relations which existed between
the Anglosaxon kingdoms, and how little concert could be expected from
their scattered and hostile rulers. Nor could he have anticipated a
jealous and sullen resistance on the part of the Keltic Christians,
which was perhaps not altogether unprovoked by the indiscreet
pretensions of Augustine[851]. But the first bishops were in fact
strictly missionaries,—as much so as the bishop of New Zealand among the
Maori,—heads of various bodies of voluntary adventurers, who at their
own great peril bore the tidings of salvation to the pagan inhabitants
of distant and separate localities. Prudence indeed dictated the
propriety of commencing with those whose authority might tend to secure
their own safety, and whose example would be a useful confirmation of
their arguments; whose own religious convictions also were less likely
to be of a settled and bigotted character than those of the villagers in
the Marks. Christianity, which in its outset commenced with the lowest
and poorest classes of society, and slowly widened its circuit till it
embraced the highest, thus reversed the process in England, and
commenced with the courts and households of the kings.
-----
Footnote 851:
This seems to follow from the relation of what passed at Augustine’s
interview with the Welsh prelates. At the same time we should judge
very unwisely were we to believe missionary jealousies confined to the
nineteenth century. In the distracted state of the British the bishops
were almost the only possessors of a legal authority; and it is not at
all probable that they would have looked with equanimity on those who
came with an open proposal of subordination, even had it been
unaccompanied with circumstances wounding to their self-love.
-----
Accordingly the conversion of a king was generally followed by the
establishment of a see, the princes being apparently desirous of
attaching a Christian prelate to their comitatus, in place of the Pagan
high-priest who had probably occupied a similar position. Considerations
of personal dignity, not less than policy, may have led to this result:
the lurking remains of heathen superstition may not have been without
their weight: whatever were the cause, we find at first a bishopric
co-extensive with a kingdom[852]. But this was obviously an insufficient
provision in the larger districts, as Christianity continued its
triumphant course, and towards the close of the seventh century,
Theodore, the first archbishop who succeeded in uniting all the English
church under his authority, finally accomplished the division of the
larger sees. From this period till the ninth century, when the invasions
of the Northmen threw all the established institutions into confusion,
the English sees appear to have ranked in the following order[853]:—
Province of Canterbury.—1. Lichfield. 2. Leicester. 3. Lincoln. 4.
Worcester. 5. Hereford. 6. Sherborne. 7. Winchester. 8. Elmham. 9.
Dummoc. 10. London. 11. Rochester. 12. Selsey.
Province of York.—1. Hexham. 2. Lindisfarn. 3. Whiterne.
-----
Footnote 852:
Kent is probably only an apparent exception. Rochester can hardly have
been otherwise than the capital of a subordinate kingdom.
Footnote 853:
I neglect temporary changes, such as that of John at Beverley, Birinus
at Dorchester, etc., and confine myself to the settled and usual
location of the sees, and what appears to have been the established
order of their precedence. One of the most solemn ecclesiastical acts
on record, namely that of archbishop Æðelheard’s synod at Clofeshoo,
in 803, by which the integrity of the see of Canterbury was restored,
was signed by the following prelates in the order in which they stand,
and which usually prevails in the rest of the charters:—
1. Æðelheard, archbishop of Canterbury.
2. Aldwulf, bishop of Lichfield.
3. Werenberht, bishop of Leicester.
4. Eádwulf, bishop of Sidnacester (Lincoln).
5. Deneberht, bishop of Worcester.
6. Wulfheard, bishop of Hereford.
7. Wigberht, bishop of Sherborne.
8. Ealhmund, bishop of Winchester.
9. Alhheard, bishop of Elmham.
10. Tidfrið, bishop of Dunwich.
11. Osmund, bishop of London.
12. Wermund, bishop of Rochester.
13. Wihthun, bishop of Selsey.—Cod. Dipl. No. 1024.
The archbishop of York, and his suffragans, it appears, did not care
to attend a synod which restored his rival of Canterbury to a
predominant authority in England.
-----
Thus, inclusive of Canterbury and York, there were seventeen sees. At a
later period some of these perished altogether, as Lindisfarn, Hexham,
Whiterne and Dummoc; while others were formed, as Durham for
Northumberland, Dorchester for Lincoln; and in Wessex, Ramsbury
(Hræfnesbyrig, Ecclesia Corvinensis) for Wilts, Wells for Somerset,
Crediton for Devonshire, and during some time, St. Petroc’s or Padstow
for Cornwall.
The earliest bishops among the Saxons were necessarily strangers. Romans
occupied the cathedral thrones of Canterbury, Rochester and London, and
for a while that of York also. Northumberland next passed for a short
time under the direction of Keltic prelates,—Scots as they were then
called,—who held no communion with the Romish missionaries. Felix, a
Burgundian, but not an Arian, evangelized Eastanglia; Birinus, a Frank,
carried the faith to Wessex. But as these men gradually left the scene
of their labours, which must have been much increased by the difficulty
of teaching populations who spoke a strange language, by means of
interpreters, their Saxon pupils addressed themselves to the work with
exemplary zeal and earnestness; it was very soon found that the island
could supply itself with prelates fully equal to all the duties of their
position; and to a mere accident was the English church indebted at the
end of the seventh century for a foreign metropolitan, in the person of
Theodore of Tarsus. Although we may reasonably suppose the traditions of
the heathen priesthood not to have been without some weight, we must not
conclude that these alone will account for the number of noble
Anglosaxons whom, from the earliest period, we find devoting themselves
to the service of the church, and clothed with its highest dignities. It
must be admitted that nowhere else did Christianity make a deeper or
more lasting impression than in England. Not only do we see the high
nobles and the near relatives of kings among the bishops and
archbishops, but kings themselves—warlike and fortunate kings—suddenly
and voluntarily renouncing their temporal advantages, retiring into
monasteries, and abdicating their crowns, that they may wander as
pilgrims to the shrines of the Apostles in Rome. We find princesses and
other high-born ladies devoting themselves to a life of celibacy, or
separating from their husbands to preside over congregations of nuns:
well descended men cannot rest till they have wandered forth to carry
the tidings of redemption into distant and barbarous lands; a life of
abstinence and hardship, to be crowned by a martyr’s death, seems to
have been hungered and thirsted after by the wealthy and the
noble,—assuredly an extraordinary and an edifying spectacle among a race
not at all adverse to the pomps and pleasures of worldly life, a
spectacle which compels us to believe in the deep, earnest,
conscientious spirit of self-sacrifice and love of truth which
characterized the nation.
The complete organization of the ecclesiastical power in England appears
to have been effected by Theodore, who is distinctly affirmed to have
been the first prelate whose authority the whole church of the Angles
consented to admit[854]. There is reason to suppose that this was not
accomplished without some difficulty, for it involved the division of
previously existing dioceses, and the consequent diminution of
previously existing power and influence. Theodore, like Augustine, had
been despatched from Rome to England, under very peculiar circumstances.
After the death of Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury, a difficulty
appears to have arisen about the election of a successor, in consequence
of which the see remained for some time without an occupant[855]. At
length however Oswiú of Northumberland and Ecgberht of Kent undertook to
put a period to a state of affairs which must have caused grave
inconveniences[856], and accordingly they took, with the election and
consent of the church, a presbyter of the late archbishop, named
Wigheard, and sent him to Rome for consecration. It is most remarkable
that we hear nothing of any co-operation on the part of Wessex in this
step, or of the powerful king of Mercia, Wulfhere, who had succeeded in
establishing the independence of his country against all the efforts of
Oswiú himself. Shortly after his arrival in Rome Wigheard died, and
after some correspondence with the English kings, Vitalian undertook to
provide a prelate for the vacant see[857]. Various difficulties being
finally overcome, his choice fell upon Theodore of Tarsus, who
accordingly was despatched to England with the power of an archbishop,
and solemnly enthroned at Canterbury in 668.
-----
Footnote 854:
“Isque primus erat in archiepiscopis, cui omnis Anglorum aecclesia
manus dare consentiret.” Beda, II. E. iv. 2.
Footnote 855:
Deusdedit died Nov. 28th, 664. The Saxon Chronicle and Florence assign
667 as the date of Wigheard’s mission, but this is hardly reconcilable
with the facts of the case, and appears to be an erroneous calculation
founded on the circumstance that the see was vacant three years, and
that Theodore arrived only in 668. Some time must have elapsed from
Wigheard’s departure for Rome, until the interchange of letters
between Oswiú and Pope Vitalian, and the completion of the
negotiations which resulted in Theodore’s appointment.
Footnote 856:
The want of an archbishop to give canonical ordination to bishops,
seems to have forced itself upon their notice. “Hunc antistitem
ordinandum Romam miserunt; quatenus accepto ipso gradu
archiepiscopatus, catholicos per omnem Britanniam aecclesiis Anglorum
ordinare posset antistites.” Beda, H. E. iv. 29. It was at all events
a good argument, though the difficulty was one which Gaul had often
arranged.
Footnote 857:
This event has naturally been discussed with very different views. The
Roman Catholics construe it to imply a recognized right in the Roman
See: the Protestants look upon it as rather a piece of skilful
manœuvring on the part of the Pope. Lappenberg (i. 172) says: “The
death of Wigheard was taken advantage of by the Pope to set over the
Anglosaxon bishops a primate devoted to his views.” “This opportunity
was not lost upon Italian subtlety. Vitalian, then Pope, determined
upon trying whether the Anglosaxons would receive an archbishop
nominated by himself.” Soames, Anglos. Church, p. 78. Against this, of
course, Lingard has expatiated in his Hist. and Antiq. i. 75. He
attributes the selection of Theodore to a _request_ of the two kings,
and adds in a note: “That such was their request is certain. Beda
calls Theodore, who was selected by Vitalian, ‘the archbishop asked
for by the king’—episcopum quem petierant a Romano pontifice (Bed. iv.
c. 1)—and ‘the bishop whom the country had anxiously sought’—doctorem
veritatis, quem patria sedula quaesierat. Id. Op. Min. p. 142.
Vitalian, in his answer to the two kings, reminds them that their
letter requested him to choose a bishop for them in the case of
Wigheard’s death—‘secundum vestrorum scriptorum tenorem.’ Bed. iii.
29. Certainly these passages must have escaped the eye of Mr. Soames,
who boldly, and without an atom of authority for his statement,
ascribes the choice of a bishop by Vitalian to Italian subtlety.” Mr.
Churton in his Early English Church, p. 67, inclines also to this
view, which is again combated by Soames in his Latin Church, etc. p.
80 _seq._; but this author with a happy skill which he sometimes
manifests of not seeing disagreeable data, says nothing of the “_quem
petierant_ a Romano pontifice.” Yet in these words lies the matter of
the whole dispute. It certainly does not appear from Vitalian’s
letter, that any such contingency as Wigheard’s death was provided for
by the kings; this is in itself extremely improbable, and the
assertion is an evidence of Lingard’s rashness where the interests of
his party are concerned. But is it not on the other hand very probable
that more letters passed between the kings and the pope than are now
recorded? that Vitalian announced Wigheard’s death, and that the
kings, conscious of the difficulty of coming to any second settlement
in such a state of society as their own (especially as they were but
two of four very equally poised authorities), fairly asked him to
solve the problem for them? I greatly doubt the strict adherence to
canonical forms of election in the seventh century; and indeed
throughout the history of the English church it appears that the kings
dealt very much at their own pleasure in the appointment of bishops.
It could hardly be otherwise with a clergy dispersed through so many
heterogeneous fractions as then made up England: and if it is now much
to be desired that the appointment by the central authority should
spare the church the scandal which might ensue from the canonical
election of bishops—strictly construed—(for acted upon strictly it
never has been under any orderly and strong government, since
Christianity began), it was much more necessary then, when the clergy
belonged to hostile populations. That central authority was royalty,
recognized wherever found.
-----
Hitherto there had been churches in England; henceforward there was a
church,—and a body of clergy existing as a central institution, in spite
of the separation and frequent hostility of the states to which the
clergy themselves belonged. No doubt the common rank and interests of
the bishops, as well as the necessity for canonical consecration had
from the first produced some sort of union among them. But from the time
of Theodore we find at least the southern prelates assembling in
provincial synods, under the direction of the metropolitan, to declare
the faith as it was found among them, establish canons of discipline and
rules of ecclesiastical government, and generally to make such
arrangements as appeared likely to conduce to the well-being of the
church, without regard to the severance of the kingdoms. To these
synods, which though not holden twice a year in accordance with
Theodore’s plan, and indeed with the ancient canons of the church, were
yet of frequent occurrence, the bishops repaired, accompanied by some of
their co-presbyters and monks, and when the business before them was
completed, returned to promulgate in their dioceses the regulations of
the council, and spread among their clergy the news of what was doing in
other lands for the furtherance of the Gospel.
The respectful deference paid to the Roman See was thus naturally
converted into a much closer and more intimate relation. Saxon England
was essentially the child of Rome; whatever obligations any of her
kingdoms may have been under to the Keltic missionaries,—and I cannot
persuade myself that these were at all considerable,—she certainly had
entirely lost sight of them at the close of the seventh and the
commencement of the eighth centuries. Her national bishops, as the Kelts
and disciples of the Kelts have been unjustifiably called, had either
retired in disgust, like Colman, or been deposed like Winfrið, or
apostatized like Cedd. It was to Rome that her nobles and prelates
wandered as pilgrims; it was the interests of Rome that her missionaries
preached in Germany[858] and Friesland; it was to her that the
archbishops elect looked for their pall[859]—the sign of their dignity:
to the Pope her prelates appealed for redress, or for authority: in the
eighth century we find one pope sanctioning the formation of a third
archiepiscopal see, in defiance of the metropolitan of Canterbury; and
in the first year of the ninth century we find this new arrangement
abrogated by the same authority. Lastly it was England that gave to Rome
Wilfrið and Willibrord and Adelberht, Boniface and Willibald, Anselm and
Becket and Robert of Winchelsea.
-----
Footnote 858:
Boniface found an ancient church even in Germany. Vit. Bonif. Pertz,
ii. 341. He rendered it a papal one. It is no doubt difficult to
imagine how it could have been originally anything else; but at all
events his efforts brought it back into subjection to the Vatican.
“D’abord les églises de la Grand Bretagne et de l’Allemagne, fondées
par les missionaires du pape, furent toutes rattachées et subordonnées
à l’épiscopat Romain. C’est surtout Saint Boniface, le fondateur de
l’église Allemande, mort en 755, qui reserra cette union. Ou diminua
partout les métropolitains, et les simples évêques devinrent plus
indépendans par leurs rapports directs avec Rome.” Warnkönig, Hist. du
Droit Belgique, p. 163. The spirit in which Boniface considered his
mission, which he himself calls _apostolicae sedis legatio_ (Vita,
Pertz, ii. 342) is apparent from the correspondence with Pope Gregory
III. in 731. “Denuo Romam nuntii eius venerunt, sanctumque sedis
Apostolicae pontificem adlocuti sunt, eique prioris amicitiae foedera,
quae misericorditer ab antecessore suo, Sancto Bonifatio eiusque
familiae conlata sunt, manifestaverunt; sed et devotam eius in futurum
humilitatis apostolicae sedi subiectionem narraverunt, et ut
familiaritati ac communioni sancti pontificis atque totius sedis
apostolicae ex hoc devote subiectus communicaret, quemadmodum edocti
erant, praecabantur. Statim ergo sedis apostolicae Papa pacificum
profert responsum, et suam sedisque apostolicae familiaritatis et
amicitiae communionem tam sancto Bonifatio quam etiam sibi subiectis
condonavit, sumptoque archiepiscopatus pallio, cum muneribus
diversisque sanctorum reliquiis legatos honorifice remisit ad
patriam.” Pertz, ii. 345. With such provocation, the Popes would
indeed have acted an unwise part in not availing themselves of the
ready service of their Anglosaxon converts!
Footnote 859:
Mr. Soames very cursorily says: “Augustine received about the same
time from Gregory the insidious compliment of a pall. He was charged
also to establish twelve suffragan bishops, and to select an
archbishop for the see of York. Over this prelate, who was likewise to
have under his jurisdiction twelve suffragan sees, he had a personal
grant of precedence. After his death the two archbishops were to rank
according to priority of consecration.” Anglosax. Church, p. 55. The
language, thus most carefully selected, is intended to meet any
argument which might be derived from the despatch of the pallium, in
token of assumption of authority by the Pope. But there can be little
doubt, whatever its original character may have been, that this
distinction was both intended and accepted as a mark of the
archiepiscopal dignity, and as conveying powers which without it could
not be exercised. This was obviously the way Beda understood it, and
Gregory meant it to be understood. In his answers to Augustine’s
questions, one of which referred to the relations which were to
subsist between the Gallican and English churches, the pope thus
refuses to give his missionary any authority over the continental
bishops:—“In Galliarum episcopis nullam tibi auctoritatem tribuimus;
quia ab antiquis praedecessorum meorum temporibus pallium Arelatensis
episcopus accepit, quem nos privare auctoritate percepta minime
debemus.” Hist. Eccl. i. 27. And in a subsequent letter to Augustine
the same pope writes:—“Et quia nova Anglorum aecclesia ad omnipotentis
Dei gratiam, eodem Domino largiente et te laborante, perducta est,
usum tibi pallii in ea ad sola missarum solemnia agenda concedimus:
_ita ut_ per loca singula duodecim episcopos ordines, qui tuae
subiaceant ditioni, quatenus Lundoniensis civitatis episcopus semper
in posterum a synodo propria debeat consecrari, atque honoris pallium
ab hac sancta et apostolica, cui Deo auctore deservio, sede precipiat.
Ad Eburacam vero civitatem te volumus episcopum mittere, quem ipse
iudicaveris ordinare; ita duntaxat, ut si eadem civitas cum finitimis
locis verbum Dei receperit, ipse quoque duodecim episcopos ordinet, et
metropolitani honore perfruatur; _quia_ ei quoque, si vita comes
fuerit, pallium tribuere Domino favente disponimus.” Beda, Hist. Eccl.
i. 29. On which Beda remarks:—“Misit etiam litteras in quibus
significat se ei pallium direxisse, simul et insinuat qualiter
episcopos in Britannia constituere debuisset.” Thirty years later,
Pope Honorius sent palls both to Paulinus of York and Honorius of
Canterbury, with letters to Eádwini of Northumberland; in these he
says:—“Duo pallia utrorumque metropolitanorum, id est Honorio et
Paulino direximus, ut dum quis eorum de hoc saeculo ad Auctorem suum
fuerit arcessitus, in loco ipsius alter episcopum ex hac nostra
auctoritate debeat subrogare.” Hist. Eccl. ii. 17. The reason of this
Beda tells us was the inconvenience of going to Rome for
archiepiscopal ordination:—“Ne sit necesse ad Romanam usque civitatem
per tam prolixa terrarum et maris spatia pro ordinando archiepiscopo
semper fatigari.” Hist. Eccl. ii. 18. We learn from Honorius’s letter
to the archbishop of Canterbury, that this alleviation was granted at
the petition of the English kings and prelates:—“Et tam iuxta vestram
petitionem, quam filiorum nostrorum regum, vobis per praesentem
nostram praeceptionem, vice beati Petri apostolorum principis,
auctoritatem tribuimus, ut quando unum ex vobis Divina ad se iusserit
gratia vocari, is qui superstes fuerit, alterum in loco defuncti
debeat episcopum ordinare. Pro qua etiam re singula vestrae dilectioni
pallia pro eadem ordinatione celebranda direximus, ut per nostrae
praeceptionis auctoritatem possitis Deo placitam ordinationem
efficere: quia ut haec vobis concederemus, longa terrarum marisque
intervalla, quae inter nos ac vos obsistunt, ad haec nos condescendere
coegerunt.” Hist. Eccl. ii. 18. The archiepiscopate in York ceased
after Paulinus’s expulsion till 735, when it was restored, king
Eádberht having succeeded in obtaining a pall for his brother
Ecgberht. The short chronicle appended to Beda says:—“Ecgberhtus
episcopus, accepto ab apostolica sede pallio, primus post Paulinum in
archiepiscopatum confirmatus est; ordinavitque Fridubertum et
Friduwaldum episcopos.” See also Chron. Sax. an. 735; Sim. Dunelm. an.
735. The following archbishops are recorded to have received their
palls from Rome:—
Canterbury:— Tátwine. Sim. Dun. an. 733.
Nóðhelm. Chron. Sax. an. 736. Flor. Wig. an. 736.
Cúðberht. Rog. Wend. i. 227. an. 740.
Eánberht. Chron. Sax. an. 764. Flor. Wig. an. 764.
Wulfred. Chron. Sax. an. 804. Flor. Wig. an. 804. Rog.
Wend. an. 806.
Ceólnóð. Chron. Sax. an. 831. Flor. Wig. an. 831.
York:— Ecgberht. an. 745. Rog. Wend. i. 228.
Alberht. Sim. Dun. an. 773.
Eánbald I. Chron. Sax. an. 780. Flor. Wig. an. 781. Sim. Dun.
an. 780.
Eánbald II. Chron. Sax. an. 797. Sim. Dun. an. 797.
Oswald. Flor. Wig. an. 973.
At some period however, which our chroniclers do not note, the custom
arose for the archbishop not to receive, but to fetch his pallium. The
following cases are recorded:—
Canterbury:— Ælfsige. Flor. Wig. an. 959.
Dúnstán. Flor. Wig. an. 960.
Sigeríc. Chron. Sax. an. 990.
Ælfríc. Chron. Sax. an. 995.
Ælfheáh. Chron. Sax. an. 1007.
Æðelnóð. Chron. Sax. an. 1022. Flor. Wig. an. 1022.
Rodbyrht. Chron. Sax. an. 1048.
York:— Ælfríc. Chron. Sax. an. 1026. Flor. Wig. an. 1026.
Aldred. Rog. Wend. i. 502. an. 1061.
Wendover states that when Offa determined to erect Lichfield into an
archbishopric, he sent to Pope Adrian for a pall; and that the pall
was accordingly dispatched, Rog. Wend. i. 138.
The avarice of the Roman See was thus fed fat: but the inconveniences
were felt to be so intolerable, that in 1031 Cnut made them the
subject of an especial remonstrance to the Pope. In his letter to the
Witan of England he says, writing from Rome:—“Conquestus sum iterum
coram domino papa et mihi valde displicere causabar, quod mei
archiepiscopi in tantum angariabantur immensitate pecuniarum quae ab
eis expetebatur, dum pro pallio accipiendo, secundum morem,
apostolicam sedem peterent; decretumque est ne ita deinceps fieret.”
Epist. Cnut. apud Flor. Wig. 1031. The question is not whether the
Roman See had a right to make a demand, but whether—usurpation or
not—it was acquiesced in and admitted by the Anglosaxon church; and on
that point there can be no dispute.
-----
Although these facts will not suffice to establish that sort of
dependence _de iure_, which zealous Papal partizans have asserted as the
normal condition of the English church, they do indisputably prove that
the example, advice and authority of the See of Rome were very highly
regarded among our forefathers. It was impossible that it should be
otherwise; and there is not the slightest doubt that—despite the Keltic
clergy—the Anglosaxon church looked with affection and respect to Rome
as the source of its own being. Respect and high regard were paid to
Rome in Gaul long before Theodore; but not such submission as our
countrymen, less acquainted no doubt with their danger, were zealous to
pay. Indeed, when we consider the position of the Roman See towards the
North of Europe, during the interval from the commencement of the
seventh till that of the ninth century, we can scarcely escape from the
conclusion that England was the great basis of papal operations, and the
ποῦ στῶ from which Rome moved her world. In the ninth century a
continental author calls the English “maxime familiares apostolicae
sedis[860],” and in the tenth century it was unquestionably England that
made the greatest progress, even if it did not take the initiative with
regard to the revival of monachism and the great question of clerical
celibacy. In short, throughout, the most energetic and successful
missionaries of Rome were Englishmen.
-----
Footnote 860:
“Unde remur, aliquos venerabiles viros aut de Britannia, id est gente
Anglorum, qui maxime familiares apostolicae sedis semper existunt,”
etc. Gest. Abb. Fontanellens. Pertz, ii. 289.
-----
But England nevertheless retained in some sense a national church. Many
circumstances combined to ensure a very considerable amount of
independence in this country. On the continent of Europe the prelates
and clergy whom the invasions of the barbarians found established in the
cities were, in fact, Roman provincials; and this character continued
for a very long time to modify their relations toward the conquerors: in
Britain, either Christianity was never widely and generally spread, or
it retreated before the steady advance of the pagan Saxons. It is
remarkable that we nowhere hear of the existence of Christian churches
before Augustine, except in the territory exclusively British, and in
the household of Æðelberht’s Frankish queen, the latter an exception of
little moment.
But no sooner do the first missionary prelates vanish from the scene,
than we find them replaced by Saxons belonging to the noblest and most
powerful families, and thus connecting the clergy with the state by that
most close and intimate tie which forms the strongest and least
objectionable security for both. Berhtwald, the eighth archbishop of
Canterbury, was a very near relative of the Mercian king Æðelred;
Aldhelm was closely connected with the royal family of Wessex; and even
down to the Conquest we find the scions of the royal and noble houses
occupying distinguished stations in the ministry of the Church. It is
obvious how much this near and intimate association with the national
aristocracy must have tended to diminish the evils of a separate
institution, having some kind of dependence upon a foreign centre; and
when to this it is added that the principal clergy, as ministers of
state and members of the Witena gemót, had a clear and distinct interest
in the maintenance of good government, and a personal share in its
administration, we can easily understand why the clergy were, generally
speaking, kept better within bounds in England than in other
contemporaneous states[861]. Guilty of extravagancies the clergy were
here, no doubt, as elsewhere; but on the whole their position was not
unfavourable to the harmonious working of the state; and the history of
the Anglosaxons is perhaps as little deformed as any by the ambition and
power, and selfish class-interests of the clergy[862]. On the other hand
it cannot be denied that in England, as in other countries, the laity
are under the greatest obligations to them, partly for rescuing some
branches of learning from total neglect, and partly for the counterpoise
which their authority presented to the rude and forcible government of a
military aristocracy. Ridiculous as it would be to affirm that their
influence was never exerted for mischievous purposes, or that this
institution was always free from the imperfections and evils which
belong to all human institutions, it would be still more unworthy of the
dignity of history to affect to undervalue the services which they
rendered to society. If in the pursuit of private and corporate
advantages they occasionally seemed likely to prefer the separate to the
general good, they did no more than all bodies of men have done,—no more
than is necessary to ensure the active co-operation of all bodies of men
in any one line of conduct. But, whatever their class-interests may from
time to time have led them to do, let it be remembered that they existed
as a permanent mediating authority between the rich and the poor, the
strong and the weak, and that, to their eternal honour, they fully
comprehended and performed the duties of this most noble position. To
none but themselves would it have been permitted to stay the strong hand
of power, to mitigate the just severity of the law, to hold out a
glimmering of hope to the serf, to find a place in this world and a
provision for the destitute, whose existence the state did not even
recognize. That the church of Christ does not necessarily and
indispensably imply that form of ministration or constitution called
Episcopal, is certain; but on the other hand let us not listen too
readily to the doctrine which represents episcopacy as inconsistent with
Christianity. To put it only on the lowest grounds, there is great
convenience in it; and though there are no peculiar priests under the
Christian dispensation, it is very useful that there should be persons
specially appointed and educated to perform functions necessary to the
moral and religious training of the people, and superior officers
charged with the inspection over those persons. It would be difficult
for the State to ascertain the condition of its members, as regards the
most important of all considerations,—their moral capability of
obedience to the law,—without such a body of recognized ministers and
recognized inspectors. Accordingly the Anglosaxon State at once
recognized the Bishops as State officers.
-----
Footnote 861:
Every wise and powerful government has treated with deserved
disregard the complaint that the “Spouse of Christ” was in bondage.
In this respect our own country has generally been honourably
distinguished. Boniface—himself an Englishman, papal beyond all his
contemporaries—laments that no church is in greater bondage than the
English,—a noble testimony to the nationality of the institution,
the common sense of the people, and the vigour of the State.
Footnote 862:
Though monks are not strictly speaking the clergy, so many prelates
and presbyters were bound by monastic vows in this country, that I
might be supposed to have fallen into confusion here, and forgotten
the troubles of Eádwig’s reign. But it will be seen hereafter that I
attach little credit to the exaggerations of the monkish authors
respecting those events, and believe their clients to have done much
less mischief than they themselves have recorded, or than their modern
antagonists have credited.
-----
The circumstances under which the establishment of Christianity took
place naturally threw a great power of superintendence and interference
into the hands of the kings: from the beginning we find them taking a
very active part both in the formation of sees, the appointment of
bishops, and other public measures touching the government of the church
and—within this—the relation of the clergy to the state. The privileges
and rights conceded to the clerical body were granted by the king and
his witan, and enjoyed under their guarantee; and down to the last
moment of the Anglosaxon monarchy we find the episcopal elections or
appointments to have been controlled by them. Indeed as the clergy, the
people and the state may be said to have been duly represented by the
Witena gemót, an episcopal election made by them appears to possess in
all respects the genuine character of a canonical election: and in times
when there were no parliamentary struggles to make single votes
valuable, there seems no reason whatever to question that this mode was
found satisfactory. The loose manner in which the early writers mention
the appointment of the bishops, hardly permits us to draw any very
definite conclusions; yet it would seem natural that, where the whole
missionary work depended upon the goodwill of the king, the latter, with
or without his council, would exercise a paramount authority in all
matters of detail. Accordingly, though we do meet with instances in
which the free election of prelates may be assumed, we do far more
frequently find them both appointed and displaced by the mere act of the
royal will[863]. The case of Wessex in the seventh century is
instructive. Ægilberht, a Frank, had succeeded Birinus, the first
missionary bishop; but, from some cause or other, he lost the favour of
the king[864], who proposed to divide his diocese, which was too large
in fact for one prelate, and to appoint Wini, a native Westsaxon, to the
second see. Ægilberht then withdrew from England in disgust, and the
king committed the undivided bishopric to Wini: but on some subsequent
misunderstanding, this bishop was expelled from Wessex, and afterwards
_purchased_ the see of London from Wulfhari, king of the Mercians.
Coinwalh then applied for and obtained another bishop from Gaul in the
person of Liuthari or Lothaire, Ægilberht’s nephew. Equally great
irregularities seem to have been admitted in respect to the Northumbrian
sees in the time of Wilfrið; and indeed throughout the Anglosaxon
history it appears that the ruling powers, that is the king and the
witan, did in fact succeed in retaining the nomination of the bishops in
their own hands[865]. I have already mentioned instances of episcopal
nominations by the witena gemót[866], and called attention to the
significant fact of so many royal chaplains promoted to sees[867]. It is
difficult no doubt to withstand a royal recommendation, and though in
the case of the Anglosaxon prelates this does not always seem to have
ensured the canonical virtues, it perhaps very sufficiently supplied
their want. After the appointment or election had thus been made, it was
usual for the bishop elect to make his profession of faith to his
metropolitan; then to receive episcopal consecration from him, assisted
by such of his suffragans as he thought fit. He then most likely
received seizin of the temporalities in the usual way by royal writ. The
following is the instrument issued in 1060, for the temporalities of the
see of Hereford, on the appointment of Walther, queen Eádgyfu’s Lorraine
chaplain. “Eadwardus rex saluto Haroldum comitem et Osbearnum, et omnes
meos ministros in Herefordensi comitatu amicabiliter. Et ego notifico
vobis quod ego concessi Waltero episcopo istum episcopatum hic vobiscum,
et omnia universa illa quae ad ipsum cum iusticia pertinent infra portum
et extra, cum saca et cum socna, tam plene et tam plane sicut ipsum
aliquis episcopus ante ipsum prius habuit in omnibus rebus. Et si illic
sit aliqua terra extra dimissa quae illuc intus cum iustitia pertinet,
ego volo quod ipsa reveniat in ipsum episcopatum, vel ille homo ipsam
dimittat eidem in suo praetio, si quis ipsam cum eo invenire possit. Et
ego nolo ullum hominem licentiare quod ei de manibus rapiat aliquam suam
rem quam ipse iuste habere debet, et ego ei sic concessi[868].”
-----
Footnote 863:
See on this subject Lingard, Anglos. Church, i. 89 _seq._ His view
seems upon the whole satisfactory, and conformable to truth.
Footnote 864:
Lingard attributes this to the intrigues of Wini, whose simoniacal
bargain for the see of London does certainly not give a favourable
impression of his character. “The influence of the stranger was
secretly undermined by the intrigues of Wini, a Saxon ecclesiastic,
who possessed the advantage of conversing with the king in his native
tongue.” Anglos. Church, i. 90. But Beda says nothing of this: he
merely hints that Coinwalh was disgusted with the difficulties which
arose from Ægilberht’s ignorance of the Anglosaxon language. The whole
transaction is thus related in the Hist. Eccl. iii. 7:—“Cum vero
restitutus esset in regnum Coinwalch, venit in provinciam de Hibernia
pontifex quidam nomine Agilberctus, natione quidem Gallus, sed tunc
legendarum gratia Scripturarum in Hibernia non parvo tempore
demoratus, coniunxitque se regi, sponte ministerium praedicandi
adsumens: cuius eruditionem atque industriam videns rex rogavit eum,
accepta ibi sede episcopali, suae genti manere pontificem. Qui
precibus eius adnuens, multis annis eidem genti sacerdotali iure
praefuit. Tandem rex, qui Saxonum tantum linguam noverat, pertaesus
barbarae loquelae, subintroduxit in provinciam alium suae linguae
episcopum vocabulo Uini, et ipsum in Gallia ordinatum: dividensque in
duas parochias provinciam, huic in civitate Venta, quae a gente
Saxonum Uintancestir appellatur, sedem episcopalem tribuit; unde
offensus graviter Agilberctus, quod hoc ipso inconsulto ageret rex,
rediit Galliam, et accepto episcopatu Parisiacae civitatis, ibidem
senex et plenus dierum obiit. Non multis autem annis post abcessum
eius a Britannia transactis, pulsus est Uini ab eodem rege de
episcopatu; qui secedens ad regem Merciorum, vocabulo Uulfheri, emit
pretio ab eodem sedem Lundoniae civitatis, eiusque episcopus usque ad
vitae suae terminum mansit.” Wessex then remained for some time
without a bishop, till Coinwalh sent to Ægilberht and invited him to
return. The Frankish prelate replied that he could not desert his
church and see, but recommended his nephew Lothaire, as a proper
person to be ordained to Wessex: and he was accordingly consecrated by
Theodore: “Quo honorifice a populo et a rege suscepto, rogaverunt
Theodorum, tunc archiepiscopum Doruvernensis ecclesiae, ipsum sibi
antistitem consecrari.” Hist. Eccl. iii. 27. See also Will. Malm. de
Gest. Pontif. lib. ii.
Footnote 865:
Throughout every difficulty the English kings never lost sight of this
part of their prerogative, often as they were deceived in its
exercise. A writer of the twelfth century very justly calls it “the
custom of the realm.” “Cum autem _iuxta regni consuetudinem_, in
electionibus faciendis potissimas et potentissimas habeat partes,”
etc. Pet. Blesensis, Ep. de Henrico II. An. Trivet. 1154. p. 35.
Footnote 866:
Page 221 of this volume.
Footnote 867:
Page 115 of this volume.
Footnote 868:
Cod. Dipl. No. 833.
-----
As this is obviously, indeed professedly, a Latin translation, I subjoin
copies of the similar writs issued on the occasion of Gisa’s appointment
to the see of Wells[869].
-----
Footnote 869:
Gisa was a chaplain of the king, and also of Lotharingen or Lorraine.
-----
“✠ Eadward king grét Harold erl and Aylnóð abbot and Godwine schýre
réuen and alle míne þeynes on Sumerseten frendlíche; and ich kýðe eów
ðæt ich habbe geunnen Gisan mínan préste ðes biscopríche hér mid eów and
alre ðare þinge ðás ðe ðǽr mid richte tógebyrað, on wóde and on felde,
mid saca and mid sócna, binnon porte and bútan, swó ful and swó forð swó
Duduc biscop oð ány biscop hit firmest him tóforen hauede on ællem
þingan. And gif hér áni land sý out of ðám biscopríche gedon, ich wille
ðæt hit cume in ongeæn óðer ðæt man hit ofgo on hire gemóð swó man wið
him bet finde mage. And ich bidde eóu allen ðæt ge him fulstan tó dríuan
Godes gerichte lóck huer hit neod sý and he eówwer fultumes biðurfe. And
ich nelle nánne man geðefien ðæt him úram honde teó ánige ðáre þinge ðás
ðe ich him unnen habben[870].”
-----
Footnote 870:
The same in Latin. “✠ Eádwardus rex Haroldo comiti, Ailnodo abbati,
Godwino vicecomiti, et omnibus ballivis suis Somersetae, salutem!
Sciatis nos dedisse Gisoni presbytero nostro episcopatum hunc apud vos
cum omnibus pertinentiis, in bosco et plano, et saca et socna, in
villis et extra, ita plene et libere in omnibus sicut episcopus
Dudocus aut aliqui praedecessorum suorum habuerunt; et si quid inde
contra iustitiam fuerit sublatum, volumus quod revocetur, vel quod
aliter ei satisfaciat. Rogamus etiam vos ut auxiliari eidem velitis ad
Christianitatem sustinandam si necesse habuerit, nolumus autem ut
ullus hominum ei auferat aliquid eorum quae ei contulimus.” Cod. Dipl.
No. 835.
-----
“✠ Eadward king grét Harold erl, and Aylnóð abbot, and Godwine and
ealle míne þeines on Sumerseten frendlíche; ich queðe eóu ðæt ich wille
ðæt Gyse biscop beó ðisses biscopríches wrðe heerinne mid eóu. And álch
ðáre þinge ðe ðás ðár mid richte tógebyrað binnan porte and bután, mid
saca and mid sócna, swó uol and swó uorð swó hit éni biscop him tóuoren
formest haueð on ealle þing. And ich bidde eóu alle ðæt ge him beón on
fultome Cristendóm tó sprekene, lóc whar hit þarf sý and eówer fultumes
beðurfe eal swó ich getrowwen tó eów habben ðat ge him on fultume beón
willen. And gif what sý mid unlage out of ðán biscopríche geydón sý hit
londe óðer an oððer þinge ðár fulstan him uor mínan luuen ðæt hit in
ongeyn cume swó swó ge for Gode witen ðat hit richt sý. God eú ealle
gehealde[871].”
-----
Footnote 871:
The same in Latin. “✠ Eádwardus rex Haroldo comiti, Ailnodo abbati,
Godwino, et omnibus ballivis suis Sumersetac, salutem! Significamus
vobis nos velle quod episcopus Giso episcopatum apud vos possideat cum
omnibus dictum episcopatum in villis et extra de iure contingentibus,
cum saca et socna, adeo plene et libere per omnia sicut ullus
episcoporum praedecessorum suorum unquam habebat. Rogamus etiam vos ut
coadiutores ipsius esse velitis ad fidem praedicandam et
Christianitatem sustinendam pro loco et tempore, sicut de vobis
fideliter confidimus vos velle id ipsum. Et si quid de dicto
episcopatu sive in terris sive in aliis rebus contra iustitiam fuerit
sublatum, adiuvetis eum pro amore nostro ad restitutionem, prout
iustum fuerit habendam. Conservet vos Dominus.” Cod. Dipl. No. 838.
-----
The metropolitans themselves were to receive consecration from one
another, in order that the expense and trouble of going to Rome might be
avoided: but during the abeyance of the archiepiscopate of York, the
prelate elect of Canterbury appears to have been sometimes consecrated
in Gaul, sometimes by a conclave of suffragan bishops at home: thus in
731 Tátwine was consecrated at Canterbury by Daniel, Ingwald, Aldwine
and Aldwulf, the respective bishops of Winchester, London, Worcester and
Rochester[872]; and Pope Gregory the Third either made or acknowledged
this consecration to be valid by the transmission of a pall in 733. We
have no evidence by whom the consecrations were performed, in many
cases, but it is probable that the old rule was adhered to as much as
possible. In 1020, Æðelnóð was consecrated to Canterbury by archbishop
Wulfstán: the ceremony took place at Canterbury on the 13th of
November[873] in that year: and since in many cases the ordination of
archbishops is mentioned without any details, but yet as preliminary to
their going to Rome for their palls, it is likely that the chroniclers
tacitly assumed the custom of reciprocal functions in Canterbury and
York to be too well known to require description.
-----
Footnote 872:
Flor. Wig. an. 731.
Footnote 873:
Chron. Sax. an. 1020.
-----
When the nomination or election by the king and his witan had taken
place, it is probable that a royal mandate was sent to the metropolitan,
to perform the ceremony of consecration. We have yet the instrument by
which Wulfstán of York certifies to Cnut the performance of this duty in
the case of archbishop Æðelnóð[874]: the archbishop says:—“Wulfstán the
archbishop greets Cnut his lord, and Ælfgyfu the lady, humbly: and I
notify to you both, dear ones, that we have done as notice came from you
to us respecting bishop Æðelwold, namely that we have now consecrated
him.” He then prays that the new prelate may have all the rights and
dues granted to him, which have been usual, and enjoyed by his
predecessors: which perhaps is to be understood as a formal demand that
the temporalities may be properly conferred upon him. There can be no
manner of doubt as to the meaning of the word _swutelung_, which I have
rendered by _notice_, and Lingard by _order_[875]: it is a legal
notification, and the technical word in a writ is _swutelian_. But I do
not believe that Cnut was any more imperative in this matter than his
predecessors had been. An Anglosaxon archbishop would never have found
it a very safe thing to neglect a royal command by ancient right[876].
-----
Footnote 874:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1314. “✠ Wulfstán arcebisceop grét Cnut cyning his
hlaford, and Ælfgyfe ða hlǽfdian eádmódlíce; and ic cýðe inc leóf ðæt
we habbað gedón swá swá ús swutelung fram eów com æt ðám biscop
Æðelnóðe, ðæt we habbað hine nú gebletsod. Nú bidde ic for Godes lufon
and for eallan Godes hálgan ðæt gewitan on Gode ðam æðe and on ðám
hálgan háde, ðæt he mote beón ðǽre þinga wyrðe ðe óðre beforan wǽron,
Dúnstán ðe gód wæs, and mænig óðer; ðæt ðes mote beón eall swá rihta
and gerysna wyrðe ðæt inc byð bám þearflíc for Gode, and eác
gerysenlíc for worolde.”
Footnote 875:
Hist. and Antiq. i. 94. His whole account is well worth attention.
Footnote 876:
We have but one instrument:—granted. But what proportion have we of
instruments respecting matters which are entirely beyond doubt?
Supposing a royal mandate of consecration had issued on the election
of every bishop, between 802, when Ecgberht came to the throne, and
1066, there would have been once in existence 36 archiepiscopal and
224 episcopal writs, or a total of 260. But during the same period, in
the 32 counties south of the Humber there would have been held 25,344
shiremoots or county-courts. I will deduct one half of this number to
meet all conceivable accidents. Of the 12,672, of which beyond a doubt
records once existed, we still possess _three_ or at the utmost _four_
instruments: but do we on that account doubt that shiremoots were
held? When we look at these ratios of 1 : 260 and 4 : 12,672, we find
the authority for the writ of consecration more than ten times as
great as that for the existence of shiremoots.
-----
The bishops were in fact officers of the administration, and whatever
importance their ecclesiastical functions may have possessed, their
civil character was not of less moment. It is abundantly obvious that
men of such a class, possessing nearly a monopoly of what learning
existed, would be necessarily called to assist in the national councils,
and would be very generally employed in the diplomatic intercourse with
foreign countries: few persons of equal rank would have been competent
to conduct a negotiation carried on in writing: and there is no doubt
that their high position in the universal institution of the church
rendered them at that period the fittest persons to manage those affairs
which concerned the general family of nations. Moreover a close alliance
always existed in England between the aristocracy and the clergy:
faithful service of the altar, like faithful service of the state, gave
rank and dignity and privileges; and the ecclesiastical authority and
influence of the bishop, as well as his habits of business, and general
aptitude to advance the interests of the crown, frequently designated
him to discharge the somewhat indefinite, but weighty, duties of what we
now call a prime minister. Administration is in truth of such far
greater importance than constitution, that we can readily see how
greatly the social welfare of England did in reality depend upon this
class, to whom so much of administrative detail was committed: and it
was truly fortunate for the country that the clerical profession was one
that a gentleman could devote himself to without disparagement, and
therefore embraced so many distinguished members of the ruling class.
The civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions were, it is well known, not
separated in England until after the Conquest. William the Norman was
the first to establish that most questionable division, the consequences
of which were often so bitterly felt by his successors. Previous to his
reign the bishop had been the assessor of the ealdorman in the scírgemót
or county-court, and ecclesiastical causes, except such as were reserved
for the decision of the episcopal synods, were subjected, like those of
the laity, to the judgment of the scírþegnas or shire-thanes: thus even
probate of wills was given in the county-court. This participation of
bishops in the administration of justice, useful and necessary in the
early ages of Christianity, was very probably derived from the functions
of their heathen predecessors, the priests of the ancient gods. The old
Germanic _placita_ were held, as is well known, under the presidency of
the priests, and these were courts of law as well as courts of
parliament. In fact there is no reason whatever to doubt that, long
before the introduction of Christianity, the public pleadings were
opened with religious ceremonies, and that the course of procedure was
regulated by religious ideas[877]. The gods were present,—to secure the
peaceful administration of justice, to sanction the finding of the
freemen, to give a holy character to the act of _doing right_ between
man and man,—to terrify the perjurer and the criminal,—perhaps to
justify the extreme penalty of the law in extreme cases; for it is
probable that to the gods alone could the life of a great wrongdoer be
offered, as an atonement to the Law, of which God is the root and
guardian. The institution of the ordeal by which it was superstitiously
supposed that the Almighty would reveal the hidden truth or falsehood of
men, further tended to connect, first the pagan and afterwards the
Christian priesthood with the administration of justice. In that most
solemn appeal to the omniscience and justice of God, the clergy
necessarily took the prominent part; and although we cannot believe that
they always resisted the temptation offered by that most strange juggle,
it may charitably be asserted that their intervention not rarely saved
the innocent from the penal consequences of an uncertain and painful
test.
-----
Footnote 877:
“Omnis itaque concionis illius multitudo ex diversis partibus coacta,
primo suorum proavorum servare contendit instituta, numinibus
videlicet suis vota solvens ac sacrificia.” Hucbald. Vit. Lebwini,
cap. xii.
-----
I have remarked in an earlier chapter[878] upon the union of the
sacerdotal with the judicial power: at a very early stage of human
society, the functions of the priest and the judge seem in general to
have been inseparable; nor were they separated in fact upon the
introduction of Christianity. In the very commencement of our æra, when
the church really did exist as a brotherhood under the guidance of the
first disciples, it was most natural that all contentions between
members of the body should be settled by the arbitration of the whole
church, or such as represented it. Litigation before the ordinary
tribunals of the state, even could such have been resorted to by
Christians, was little consonant with the doctrine of charity which was
to prevail among the members of one mystical body, founded on almighty
Love. Accordingly St. Paul himself[879] expressly forbids the disciples
to carry their contentions before the secular authorities, implying that
it is their duty to bring them to the consideration of their
fellow-believers, that they may be amicably settled, in the spirit of
forbearance and Christian moderation. And as persecution gradually
threatened the terrified community, this course became unavoidable: it
was impossible for the Christian to submit to the pagan forms of the
tribunals, yet to refuse these was to proclaim the adoption of a
proscribed and illegal association. The establishment of a hierarchy
among the Christians themselves supplied some remedy for this
difficulty, and it was soon decided that the disputes of the brotherhood
were to be brought before the presbyter or bishop as a judge,—a course
which in itself was natural in countries where the Romans had permitted
the existence of some authority in the national tribunals, and had not
insisted upon dragging every cause before their own officers. The
peculiar situation of the Christians themselves as citizens of a new
state—viz. the religious state—tended to consolidate this system.
Christianity took cognizance of motives, of acts entirely beyond the
reach of mere human law, and the community claimed a right to judge of
the internal as well as the external state of its members. Immorality,
not cognizable by any positive law, was a proper subject for the
animadversion of a body whose duty it was to exclude from communion all
who pertinaciously refused to perform the duties of their profession. It
was thus that a twofold jurisdiction became lodged in the church,—and in
the bishop or presbyter, as its representative in each particular
locality,—long before the reception of Christianity among the
_religiones licitae_ transformed the customs of an obscure sect into
recognised laws of the empire. But no sooner had the terms of the great
alliance been arranged, than the state hastened to give the imperial
sanction to what had hitherto been merely the bye-laws of a sodality:
and the decisions of a council, if confirmed by the assent of the
emperor, were at once raised to the rank of imperial laws. Thus the
council of Carthage in 397 had threatened with excommunication any
clergyman who should pursue another before the secular tribunals; and
this decree, repeated in 451 by the fourth general Council—that of
Chalcedon—had received the sanction of Marcianus, and become part of the
law of the Roman empire. The jurisdiction of the bishops in the affairs
of the clergy was thus rendered legal; but it was at a later period
extended so as to include a much wider sphere. Justinian not only
commanded all causes in which monks were concerned to be referred to the
bishop of the diocese, but made him the only legal channel of
proceedings even in cases where laymen had claims against the
clergy[880].
-----
Footnote 878:
Volume i. page 146.
Footnote 879:
1 Corinthians vi. 1-7.
Footnote 880:
Novel. § 83.
-----
Arbitration by the bishop had thus grown up into a custom, at first
absolutely necessary, and afterwards always desirable, in a society like
the Christian. Accordingly Constantine permitted all contentions to be
so settled. But it was a rule of Roman law that there could lie no
appeal whatever from a voluntary arbitration; and in pursuance of this
rule, in the year 408, Arcadius and Honorius decreed that the sentences
of bishops should be without appeal[881]. In this manner was the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction founded in the Greek and Roman empires.
-----
Footnote 881:
Dönniges, Deut. Staatsr. p. 48 _seq._
-----
Happily for ourselves, this could not be admitted without modification
in the Germanic states. Had it indeed been so, every trace of
independence would long since have perished, and the whole civilized
world have found itself subject to the principles and regulations of an
effete scheme of jurisprudence. The antagonism of the Germanic customary
right it was that saved us from the consequences which must have
followed the universal prevalence of maxims elaborated by another race,
and sprung out of a different social condition. It was the conflict of
the Roman and Ecclesiastical laws with those of the Teutonic victors
that produced that modified system of relations, under which, by the
blessing of Providence, civilization has been maintained, the general
well-being of mankind advanced, and human society firmly established
throughout Europe, on a basis susceptible of progressive, perhaps
illimitable improvement. Useful as a counter-check to the somewhat
disruptive system of the Germans, the Roman and Ecclesiastical laws have
yet never been able to destroy the nationality, or abridge the freedom,
of our races; while they have tended to give consistency and method to
our own customs, and to reduce into form and harmony what, but for them,
might have been liable to fall asunder from its own internal vigour.
Like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, they have balanced one
another, and held our social state together as one majestic and
consistent whole.
The method of doing justice between man and man, which was the very
foundation-stone of the Teutonic polity, was in direct opposition to the
doctrines of Roman jurists and the practice of the church. Justice went
out from among the people themselves, not from the king or the bishop.
The people spoke both as to fact and law, the ancient customary law; nor
did they at any time allow their relations as Christians to abrogate the
older rights they had possessed as citizens, where the exercise of these
was clearly compatible with the recognition of the former. In respect to
their religion, they duly submitted to the ecclesiastical authority,
made confession, performed penance, and hearkened to advice tendered by
qualified functionaries; but they nevertheless still met in their folk-
and shire-moots to hold plea, declare folk-right, and superintend its
execution by their national officers. Not even to the clergy themselves
did they accord an immunity from the universal duties of freemen: and
although they may have been disposed to acquiesce in the claim to be
quit of personal military service, they never excused suit and service
to the popular courts. Only when the relation of a cleric to his
superior was that of an unfree man to his lord, did the state release
him from this duty, or rather did the state hold him unworthy of this
privilege.
The existence of such a body as the English clergy could not possibly be
ignored. As organized agents of a system which professed to exercise a
right of rule over the most secret desires and motives of men,—as
students distinguished by their knowledge, or remarkable for their
piety,—as landlords, in the enjoyment of great wealth, and chiefs of
numerous dependents,—lastly as advisers and ministers of the ruling
class, or intermediaries in the intercourse with foreign states,—they
formed a power whose claims to attention could not be neglected. But
their social position itself was that which brought them continually in
relation with the other aggregates of freemen, and they were therefore
called upon to take their place with other landowners, lords, or
ministerials in the popular councils.
With all their attachment to the customary law and the national
franchises, the Anglosaxons never lost sight of the fact that
Christianity had introduced new social relations: they were ready to
admit that there was now a godcund or _divine_ as well as woroldcund or
_secular_ right; and in the exposition of the former they were willing
to follow the guidance of those who professed to make it their especial
study. Moreover the system of Anglosaxon jurisprudence depended very
much upon the trustworthy character of witnesses, and the ordination of
the clergy was justly taken to have imposed upon them the obligation of
a peculiar truthfulness. The testimony of members of their class became
therefore a very important thing in the sight of the _moot-thanes_ who
might have disputed points to settle, or who, in mixed causes, might
shrink from doing wrong to the venerable body by too strict an
application of the principles by which themselves were bound. Lastly, as
there was a merciful tendency among the people to have disputes settled
by arbitration and on equitable grounds, rather than by the strict rules
of law, the clergy, whose jurisdiction extended to the motives of
Christians rather than the mere acts of citizens, were valuable
intermediaries between contending parties. The dignity of the class—the
_honor clericalis_—was cheerfully recognised, the wisdom and goodness of
the body acknowledged, and the propriety of being to a great degree
guided by the experience and enlightenment of their leaders, readily
conceded. Accordingly the bishop became an inseparable assessor of the
Frankish count and of the Anglosaxon ealdorman in their respective
courts[882].
-----
Footnote 882:
See Leg. Eádg. ii. § 5. Cnut, ii. § 18.
-----
The duties of a bishop as the officer of a state, and
contradistinguished from his merely ecclesiastical functions, were to
assist in the administration of justice between man and man, to guard
against perjury, and to superintend the administration of the ordeals;
further to take care that no fraud was committed by means of unjust
measures, to which end he was made the guardian of the standards, and
the judge of what work might be demanded from the serf; above all, to
watch over the maintenance of the peace, and the upholding of divine as
well as secular law[883]. The canons of the church did indeed prohibit
the presence of bishops on trials which might involve the penalties of
death or mutilation; and even the Constitutions of Clarendon, the object
of which was to place the clergy on their proper and ancient footing
towards the other members of the church and state, recognised this
exemption[884]: but there is little reason to suppose that it was
regarded by the Anglosaxons; indeed the popular courts had no power to
pass sentences of so deep a dye, until long after the custom of the
bishop’s presence therein had been established too firmly to be
questioned. It was otherwise among the Franks, and we may perhaps
attribute this to the strong nationality of the Frankish clergy, which
indisposed them to claim their canonical immunity.
-----
Footnote 883:
The ‘Institutes of Ecclesiastical Polity’ are very explicit upon these
points. They say:—“To a bishop belongs every direction, both in divine
and worldly things. He shall, in the first place, inform men in
orders, so that each of them may know what it properly behoves him to
do, and also what they have to enjoin to secular men. He shall ever be
[busied] about reconciliation and peace, as he best may. He shall
zealously appease strifes and effect peace, with those temporal judges
who love right. He shall in accusations direct the _lád_, so that no
man may wrong another, either in oath or ordeal. He shall not consent
to any injustice, or wrong measure, or false weight; but it is fitting
that every legal right (both ‘burhriht’ and ‘landriht’) go by his
counsel and with his witness: and let every burgmeasure, and every
balance for weighing be, by his direction and furthering, very exact;
lest any man should wrong another, and thereby altogether too greatly
sin.... It behoves all Christian men to love righteousness, and shun
unrighteousness; and especially men in orders should ever exalt
righteousness, and suppress unrighteousness: therefore should bishops,
together with temporal judges, so direct judgments, that, as far as in
them lies, they never permit any injustice to spring up there.... By
the confessor’s direction, and by his own measure, it is justly
fitting that the thralls work for their lords over all the district in
which he shrives. And it is right that there be not one measuring-rod
longer than another, but all regulated by the confessor’s measure; and
let every measure in his shrift-district, and every weight, be, by his
direction, very rightly regulated: and if there be any dispute, let
the bishop arbitrate.” Thorpe, ii. 312 _seq._
Footnote 884:
“Archiepiscopi, episcopi et universae personae regni, qui de rege
tenent in capite, habeant possessiones suas de rege sicut baroniam, et
inde respondeant iusticiariis et ministris regis, et sequantur et
facient omnes consuetudines regias; et sicut caeteri barones, debent
interesse iudiciis curiae regis quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem
membrorum vel ad mortem.” Rog. Wend. _anno_ 1164. Coxe, ii. 301.
-----
Another exemption which the bishops properly possessed, seems also to
have been often neglected in this country,—that namely of personal
service in the field. No doubt, all over Europe, as soon as the bishops
became possessed of lands liable to the _hereban_, or military muster,
they, like other lords, were compelled to place their armed tenants on
foot, for the public service, when duly required: but their levies were
mostly commanded by officers specially designated for that purpose and
known under the names of _advocati_, _vicedomini_, or _vidames_; being
in general nobles of power and dignity who assumed or accepted the
exercise of the bishop’s royalties, the management of his estates, the
administration and execution of his justice, and a remunerative share of
his revenues and patronage. In Saxon England, however, we do not meet
with these officers; and though it is probable that the bishop’s geréfa
was bound to lead his contingent under the command of the ealdorman, yet
we have ample evidence that the prelates themselves did not hold their
station to excuse them from taking part in the just and lawful defence
of their country and religion against strange and pagan invaders[885].
Too many fell in conflict to allow of our attributing their presence on
the field merely to their anxiety lest the belligerents should be
without the due consolations of religion; and in other cases, upon the
alarm of hostile incursions, we find the levies stated to have been led
against the enemy by the duke and bishop of the district.
-----
Footnote 885:
As late as 43 Edw. III. A.D. 1369, on an alarm of invasion, orders
were given to arm and array the clergy, as well as laity. Rym. Foed.
vi. 631.
-----
Attention has been called in another chapter to the fact that the
bishops did not universally (or indeed usually), make their residences
in the principal cities[886]. A remarkable distinction thus arose
between themselves and the prelates of Gaul and Germany. The latter,
strong in the support of the burgesses, and identified with the urban
interests, found means to consolidate a power which they used without
scruple against the king when it suited their convenience, or which
enabled them to extort from him the grant of offices that virtually
rendered them independent of his authority. This was generally effected
through the bishop’s obtaining the county, that is becoming the count,
and thus exercising the palatine power in his city, as well as that
which he might already possess _iure episcopii_, and as _defensor urbis_
or patron of the municipality. This, rare indeed under Charlemagne, but
not uncommon in the times which preceded and followed him, can at least
not be proved to have taken place in England before the Conquest[887].
There is indeed one instance which might seem at first sight to
contradict this assertion, but which upon closer investigation rather
confirms it. We learn that certain thieves, having attempted a
sacrilegious entry into the church of St. Eádmund, and being
miraculously delivered into the hands of the authorities, were put to
death by the orders of Ðeódred, then bishop of London and of
Eastanglia[888]. This event took place after the conquest of the
last-named province by Æðelstán, who about 930 drove the Danes from it
or reduced them under his own power. At that time it appears uncertain
whether the conquered kingdom had been duly arranged and settled, or
whether any ealdorman had been appointed to govern it. If not, we must
imagine that Ðeódred, the only constituted authority on the spot, acted
at his own discretion in a case of urgency, without absolutely
possessing the legal power to do so; that the act was in short one of
those examples of what in modern times we understand by the term
Lynch-law, that law which men are obliged to administer for themselves
in the absence of the regular machinery of government. But it is further
observable that, according to the terms of the legend itself, these
thieves were taken _in the manner_, and consequently liable to capital
punishment without any trial at all[889]; this justice we may suppose
Ðeódred to have executed, and to its summary character we may attribute
the regrets he expressed on the subject at a later time. It is also
possible to account for the act by supposing that even at this early
period the bishop possessed his sacu and sócn in the demesne of St.
Eádmund, and that he proceeded to execute his thieves by his right as
lord of the sócn: but there is no clear proof that the immunity did
exist before the time of Cnut, and I therefore incline to the second
explanation as the most probable. But if Ðeódred did not act in
pursuance of possessing the comitial power, we may safely say that there
is no evidence whatever of any Saxon bishop having exercised it[890]. As
assessor to the ealdorman, the bishop was especially charged to attend
to the due levy of tithe and other church imposts; but this was clearly
because he had a direct interest in the law that decreed their punctual
payment, and was certain not to connive at any neglect in its execution,
which the ealdorman out of favour or carelessness might possibly have
been disposed to do.
-----
Footnote 886:
The Normans adopted a different custom. Many of the cathedrals were
transferred from obscure sites to the cities which they now adorn, by
the first Norman bishops.
Footnote 887:
After the Conquest it did take place: Walcher bishop of Durham was
made also count of the same in 1075, upon the capture of Earl Wælþeóf.
Hist. Dunelm. Eccl. lviii. (lib. iii. cap. xxiii. p. 208). As late as
the time of Richard the First, we find a successor of Walcher, Hugo de
Pusac, purchasing the same county of the king, _anno_ 1189. Ric.
Divisiens. p. 8. One year later, Baldwin archbishop of Canterbury
suspended Hugo, bishop of Coventry, because “contra dignitatem
episcopalis ordinis, officium sibi vicecomitatus usurpaverat.” Rog.
Wend. an. 1190. Coxe, iii. 18.
Footnote 888:
“Hic fecit suspendi latrones volentes infregisse aecclesiam Sancti
Eadmundi, qui tamen erant miraculose impediti.” Chron. de Passione S.
Edmundi, cited by Wharton. Ep. et Dec. Lond. p. 29. See also Will.
Malm. Gest. Pont. lib. ii.
Footnote 889:
William of Malmesbury seems to allude to this point, when he says of
St. Eádmund: “Latrunculos, noctu sacram aedem expilare aggressos,
invisis loris in ipsis conatibus irretivit; formoso admodum
spectaculo, quod praeda praedones tenuit, ut nec coepto desistere, nec
inchoata valerent perficere.” Gest. Reg. i. 366, § 213.
Footnote 890:
By the law of Eádweard the Confessor, “cyricbryce” belonged to the
bishop. “Si quis sanctae aecclesiae pacem fregerit, episcoporum tum
est iusticia.” Leg. Eád. Conf. § vi. But this seems a different thing
altogether, and to be a violation of the “grið” only.
-----
But a still higher authority was placed in the hands of the bishop,
derived in fact from the assumed pre-eminence of the ecclesiastical over
the secular power. If the geréfa would not do justice, and maintain the
peace in the land, then the bishop was especially commanded to enforce
the fines which the king and his witan had apportioned to that officer’s
offence[891]. It was no doubt argued that no geréfa would be found bold
enough to incur the danger of offering violent resistance to the sacred
person of the prelate; and even the ealdorman, who might have set the
king at defiance, would tremble to encounter the substantial terrors of
excommunication and a laborious penance.
-----
Footnote 891:
“But if any of my reeves will not do this, and care less about it than
we have decreed, then let him pay my _oferhyrnes_ [that is the fine
for _disobedience_], and I will find another, who will. And let the
bishop exact the _oferhyrnes_ of the reeve in whose district it may
be.” Leg. Æðelst. i. § 26. Thorpe, i. 212. Again: “And let the judge
that giveth wrong judgment to another, pay to the king a _bót_ of one
hundred and twenty shillings; unless he will venture to prove on oath
that he knew no better. And let him forfeit his thaneship for ever,
unless he can redeem it from the king, as he may be willing to permit.
And let the bishop of the shire exact the _bót_ into the king’s hand.”
Leg. Eádg. ii. § 3. Thorpe, i. 266.
-----
The high station occupied by the bishop in the social hierarchy is
proved by the amount of his wergyld and of the fines assigned to
offences against his honour, his person, and his property. Although the
bishop and the presbyter are in fact but of one order in the church, yet
the state found it convenient to place the former on much the higher
scale. In the “North-people’s law” an archbishop is reckoned upon the
same footing as an æðeling or prince of the blood, at fifteen thousand
thrymsas, and a bishop upon the same footing as an ealdorman at eight
thousand. The breach of a bishop’s surety or protection, like the
ealdorman’s, rendered the offender liable to a fine of two pounds, which
in the case of an archbishop rose to three[892]. He that drew weapon
before a bishop or ealdorman was to be mulcted in one hundred shillings,
before an archbishop, in one hundred and fifty[893]. Under Ini the
violence done to a bishop’s dwelling, and the seat of his jurisdiction,
was to be compensated with one hundred and twenty shillings, while the
ealdorman’s was protected by a fine of only eighty: in this the
episcopal dignity was placed upon a level with that of the king
himself[894]. Similarly Wihtrǽd had declared his mere word, without an
oath, to be like the king’s, incontrovertible.
-----
Footnote 892:
Leg. Ælfr. § 3. Cnut, ii. § 59. Thorpe, i. 62, 408. In this last
passage, as in the North-people’s law of wergyld, the archbishop’s and
æðeling’s borh and mundbryce are reckoned alike at three pounds. So
also Ll. Æðelr. vii. § 11. Thorpe, i. 330.
Footnote 893:
Leg. Ælf. § 15. Æðelr. vii. § 12. Thorpe i. 70, 332.
Footnote 894:
Leg. Ini, § 45. Thorpe, i. 130. This overrated estimate is corrected
by Ælfred, who settles the sums thus: king, one hundred and twenty
scill.; archbishop, ninety scill.; bishop and ealdorman, sixty scill.
Leg. Ælf. § 40. Thorpe, i. 88.
-----
The ecclesiastical functions of the bishops were here the same as
elsewhere. To them belonged the ordination of priests and deacons, the
hallowing of chrism, the ceremonies of confirmation, the consecration of
churches and churchyards, nuns and monks; they had a right to regulate
the lives and conversation of their clergy, to superintend the monastic
foundations, and in general to watch that every detail of the
ecclesiastical establishment was duly regarded and maintained. In their
peculiar synods they could frame canons of discipline, to be enforced in
the several dioceses. They were the receivers-general of all
ecclesiastical revenue, which they distributed to the inferior clergy
under their government, according to certain specified regulations;
providing out of the common fund for the due maintenance of the priests,
the buildings, and minor accessories required for decent celebration of
the rites of religion.[895]
-----
Footnote 895:
Leg. Wihtr. § 16. Thorpe, i. 40.
-----
But the most important of their functions was that which is technically
called _iurisdictio fori interni_, their jurisdiction in matters of
conscience, their dealing with the motives and feelings, rather than the
acts of men. This—which practically they exercised through the several
presbyters who were, for the general convenience, dispersed over the
face of the country,—was the true source of their power, and measure of
their social influence. Positive law deals only with the actions of men,
and then only when they are perfected or completed: religion regulates
the inward impulses from which those actions spring, and its authority
extends both before and beyond them: intention, not act, is its proper
province. But the secret intentions and motives of men are known
perfectly to God alone; the man himself may, and often does possess but
an indistinct and fallacious notion of his own impulses; and as it is in
these, rather than in the acts which are their results, that the essence
of guilt lies, the Christian was taught to unbosom himself to one of
more experienced and disciplined feelings;—one whose profession was to
console the distracted sinner, and who, on genuine repentance, was
empowered to announce the glad tidings of reconciliation with God.
Confession of sins was the mode pointed out by the founder of the
church, to obtain the blessings of almighty mercy; but how were the
ignorant, the obstinate, or the despairing to know the right manner of
such confession? How could they know in what form confession was
effectually to be made to God? How could they, plunged in sin and
foulness, dare to approach the source of all purity and holiness? What
hope could the grovelling outcast have of being admitted to the throne
of his glorious King, even for the purpose of renouncing his state of
rebellion and apostasy? But the glorious King was a merciful sovereign,
who had commissioned certain of his servants, reconciled sinners
themselves, to be intermediaries between his own majesty and the
terror-stricken offender: they had been sent forth armed with full power
to receive the submission which the guilty feared to offer to Himself in
person, furnished with instructions as to the exact mode in which the
satisfactory propitiation was to be made. These commissioners were the
especial body of the clergy,—the successors and representatives of the
Levitical Priests under the Law,—the offerers of the sacrifices,—to whom
the spirit of God had been exclusively communicated in the ceremony of
their ordination, and who thereby became possessors of the divine
authority, to bind and loose, to forgive sins on earth and in the world
to come. The clergy therefore undertook to direct the suffering and
heart-broken outlaw to the throne of peace. Again, as the merely human
preacher of atonement possessed of himself no means of ascertaining the
genuineness of repentance, a system of penances was established which
might serve as a test of the penitent’s earnestness: and too soon a
miserable error grew up that, by submitting to self-inflicted
punishments, the sinner might diminish the weight of the penalties which
he had earned in a future state. But he might exceed or fall short of
the just measure, if not duly weighed and apportioned by those who were
in possession of the divine will in that respect: men had even without
their own knowledge become holy and justified by their works of
self-abasement and humiliation and charity: such men might exceed the
necessary limit of penance and mortification:—happily for the sinner and
the saint, the priest had a code of instructions at hand by which the
difficulties in all cases could be readily adjusted.
These codes of instructions, known by the names of Confessionalia,
Poenitentialia, Modus imponendi Poenitentiam, and the like, were
compiled by the bishops, to whom the _iurisdictio fori interni_ was
exclusively competent, as soon as the episcopal system became firmly
settled. The presbyter exercised it only as the bishop’s vicar, when it
became inconvenient for the penitent to visit a distant cathedral or
metropolis. The episcopal right was open to every bishop: each one
might, if he dared, embody his own ideas on the subject in a code, which
would derive its authority from conformity to the recognised customs of
the church, the personal reputation of its author, and the general
acceptance by his episcopal peers throughout the world. The differing
circumstances of differing states of society required skilful adaptation
of general rules; and therefore any bishop who felt in his conscience
that he was qualified for the task, might bring the light of his wisdom
to the consideration of this weighty matter, and make such regulations
as to himself seemed good, for the management of his own
diocese,—certain that, if the blessing of God rested upon his
endeavours, his views would be widely circulated and adopted by his
neighbours. There is perhaps no more melancholy evidence in existence of
the vanity and worthlessness of human endeavours than the celebrated
works which thus arose in various parts of Europe; and nothing can
demonstrate more strikingly the folly and wickedness of squaring and
shaping the unlimited mercy of God by the rule and measure of mere human
intelligence. With the contents of these Poenitentials we have of course
not here to deal; but I am bound to say that I know of no more fatal
sources of antichristian error, no more miserable records of the
debasement and degradation of human intellect, no more frightful proofs
of the absence of genuine religion. It was the evil tendency of those
barbarous early ages not to be satisfied with the simple promises of
divine mercy, and faith was clouded and confused by the crowd of
incongruous images which were raised between itself and its all-glorious
object. At one time terrified by the consciousness of sin, at another
deluded by the cheap hope of ceremonial justification, the human race
eagerly rushed to multiply the means of salvation, and franticly
rejoiced in the establishment of a host of mediators between themselves
and their crucified Redeemer, between the frightened but unconverted
sinner, and his offended Lord and Maker. The pure Word of God was not
then, as it now is, accessible to every reader; and those whose duty it
was to proclaim what the mass of men could not obtain access to
themselves, had erred into a devious labyrinth of traditions, through
which the weary wayfarer circled and circled in endless, objectless
gyrations, at every turn more distant only from the goal he pursued.
Pure and good were no doubt the objects sought by Cummian, and Theodore
and Ælfríc, and pious the spirit in which they wrought; but the
foundation of their house was upon sand, and when the rains fell and the
tempests roared around it vanished in a moment from before the sight of
God and man, never to be reconstructed, even until the closing of the
ages.
The sources of revenue by which the bishops supported their temporal
power will be considered in a subsequent chapter: it is enough that we
find them to have been amply endowed with fitting means, in every part
of Europe. During the Anglosaxon period, poverty and self-denial were
not the characteristics of the class, however they may have
distinguished certain members of the body. Nor will the philosophical
enquirer see cause for regret in this: far more will he rejoice in the
establishment of any system which tends to draw closer the bonds of
intercourse between the clerical and lay members of the church, which
leads to the identification of their worldly as well as their eternal
interests, and unites them in one harmonious work of praise and
thanksgiving, one active service of worship and charity and love, before
the face of Him in whom they are united as one holy priesthood. It is
the separation of the clergy from the laity, as a class, to which the
world owes so many ages of misery and error; and to the comparative
union of both orders in the church, we may perhaps attribute the general
quiet which, in these respects, characterized the Anglosaxon polity. On
these points of separation I shall also have something to say hereafter;
but for the present one more subject alone remains to be treated of in
this chapter, the last but not least remarkable function of the
episcopal authority and power. By far the most important point of the
public ecclesiastical jurisdiction,—for the _iurisdictio fori interni_
is quite another thing,—lay in the questions of marriage, which were
especially reserved for the bishop’s cognizance. The prohibitions which
the clergy enforced were obviously unknown to the strict Teutonic law,
which permitted considerable licence in these respects. From Tacitus we
learn that a sort of polygamy was not unknown on the part of the
princes; it was probably looked upon as a useful mode of increasing the
alliances of the tribe[896],—the only conceivable ground on which it
could have been allowed by a race so strict in the observance of
marriage. We do not know within what degrees the Germans permitted
unions which the Roman clergy considered incestuous, but we do know that
Gregory considered a relaxation of the strict rule necessary to the
success of Augustine in Britain; that he gave the missionary positive
instructions upon the subject, and, when blamed by his episcopal brother
of Messina for this concession, justified his course by the danger which
he apprehended for his plan of conversion, if the prejudices of the
Saxons on so vital a point were too hastily shocked[897]. From these
directions of Gregory we learn not only that the marriage of first
cousins was common, but—what is much more surprising—that the marriage
with a father’s widow was so likewise. Nor can we doubt this, when we
not only find recorded cases of its occurrence, but when we have a
Teutonic king distinctly affirming it to be the legal custom of his
people: in the sixth century Ermengisl king of the Varni can say, “Let
Radiger my son marry his step-mother, even as our national custom
permits[898];” and therefore when we find Beda speaking of a similar
marriage, and declaring Eádbald to have been “fornicatione pollutus tali
qualem nec inter gentes auditam Apostolus testatur, ita ut uxorem patris
haberet[899],” or Asser on another such occasion saying that it was
“contra Dei interdictum, et Christianorum dignitatem, nec non et contra
omnium Paganorum consuetudinem,” we can only suppose that they either
did not know, or that they deemed it advisable not to recognise, the
ancient heathen practice.
-----
Footnote 896:
“Nam prope soli barbarorum singulis uxoribus contenti sunt, exceptis
admodum paucis, qui non libidine, sed ob nobilitatem plurimis nuptiis
ambiuntur.” Tac. Germ. xviii.
Footnote 897:
See Felix’s letter, Bed. Op. Min. ii. 239. He not only expresses his
own surprise, but adds that other clergymen had been greatly disturbed
by Gregory’s departure from the rule of the church: “non modicum
murmur super hac re nobiscum versatur.” Gregory replies in some
detail, and especially says: “Quod autem scripsi Augustino, Anglorum
gentis episcopo, alumno videlicet, ut recordaris, tuo, de
consanguinitatis coniunctione, ipsi et Anglorum genti, quae nuper ad
fidem venerat, ne a bono quod coeperat metuendo austeriora recederet,
specialiter et non generaliter caeteris me scripsisse cognoscas.” Bed.
Op. Min. ii. 242. The following are the directions referred
to:—“Quinta interrogatio Augustini. Usque ad quotam generationem
fideles debeant cum propinquis sibi coniugio copulari? et novercis et
cognatis si liceat copulari coniugio? Respondit Gregorius. Quaedam
terrena lex in Romana republica permittit ut, sive frater et soror,
seu duorum fratrum germanorum, vel duarum sororum filius et filia
misceantur; sed experimento didicimus ex tali coniugio sobolem non
posse succrescere, et Sacra Lex prohibet cognationis turpitudinem
revelare. Unde necesse est ut iam tertia vel quarta generatio fidelium
licenter sibi iungi debeat; nam secunda, quam praediximus, a se omni
modo debet abstinere. Cum noverca autem miscere grave est facinus,
quia et in Lege scriptum est, ‘Turpitudinem patris tui non
revelabis’.... Quia vero sunt multi in Anglorum gente qui, dum adhuc
in infidelitate essent, huic nefando coniugio dicuntur admixti, ad
fidem venientes admonendi sunt ut se abstineant et grave hoc esse
peccatum cognoscant.” The correspondence with Felix apparently refers
to further regulations on the subject which are no longer found in the
copies of Gregory’s answers to Augustine.
Footnote 898:
Ῥαδίγερ δὲ ὁ παῖς ξυνοικιζέσθω τῇ μητρυιᾷ τὸ λοιπὸν τῇ αἰτοῦ, καθάπερ
ὁ πάτριος ἡμῖν ἐφίησι νόμος. Procop. Bel. Got. iv. 20.
Footnote 899:
Hist. Eccl. ii. 5. The words of St. Paul, here referred to, are in 1
Cor. v. 1. Asser, Vit. Ælf. 858. The very words of Beda himself seem
to prove that Eádbald’s marriage was closely connected with
heathendom,—perhaps was intended to be a public profession of it. He
says that the king, being terrified by Laurentius’s account of a
miraculous vision he had had, “anathematizato omni idolatriae cultu,
abdicato connubio non legitimo, suscepit fidem Christi, et baptizatus
aecclesiae rebus quantum valuit, in omnibus consulere et favere
curavit.” Hist. Eccl. ii. 6. In fact the politics of that day seem
generally to have consisted in the apostasy of a converted king’s
successor. The heathen priests could hardly be expected to yield quite
without a struggle. The cases are curious enough to merit a detailed
record. What the age of Æðelberht’s second wife may have been is
unknown to us; but there is some probability that Æðelwulf’s marriage
was never really consummated, that it was never a marriage at all.
Judith can hardly have been more than twelve when Æðelwulf married
her, and within two years he died.
-----
In both the cases referred to, the obvious scandal was put a stop to by
the separation of the parties[900],—Eádbald being evidently led to this
step by superstitious fears, rather than submitting to an episcopal
authority exercised by Laurentius. It is certainly strange in the case
of Æðelbald, if there really were a separation, that we hear nothing of
the interference of the Church to produce so important an event.
-----
Footnote 900:
Eádbald’s divorce is recorded, as we have seen, by Beda. Æðelbald’s
rests on much less sure authority,—that only of Matthew Westminster,
and Rudborne, Annal. Winton. Judith, after her return to France,
eloped with Baldwin of Flanders, to whom she bore Matilda, William the
Conqueror’s wife. See Warnkönig, Hist. Fland. i. 144.
-----
We learn that by degrees the time arrived at which the clergy thought
themselves strong enough to insist upon a stricter observance of the
canonical prohibitions, and various instances are on record where their
intervention is mentioned, to separate persons too nearly connected by
blood. It is probable that many more of these are intended than we
actually know; for unhappily the monkish writers are over-fond of using
strong expressions both of praise and blame, and not rarely fling
_pellex scortum_ and _concubina_ at the heads of women who were for all
that, legally speaking, very honest wives. One celebrated case has
obtained a worldwide reputation,—that of Eádwig, the details of whose
unhappy fate will probably for ever remain a mystery. Political
calculations, and unreconciled national jealousies were in all
probability the mainsprings of the events of his troublous life; but
that which lends it all its romance—his separation from Ælfgyfu—was the
act of a prelate determined upon upholding the ecclesiastical law of
marriage. It is to be regretted that we do not know the exact degree of
relationship between the royal victims. It may have been too close, in
the eyes of the stricter clergy; yet we cannot close our eyes to the
fact that it was long acquiesced in by the English nobles; nor, had
Eádwig shown himself more pliant to the pretensions of Dúnstán, might we
ever have heard of it at all. History, deprived of all its materials,
will here fail to do even late justice to the sufferers; but it will not
fail to stamp with its enduring brand the brutal conduct of their
persecutors[901]. However conscientious may have been the intentions of
archbishop Oda, it is to be lamented that a stain of barbarous cruelty
attaches to his memory, for the part he took in this transaction. It he
found it inevitable, after two years of wedded life further to humiliate
his already humbled sovereign, by insisting upon the removal of his
young consort, it was not necessary to disfigure her with hot
searing-irons, or on her return from exile to put her to a cruel death.
The asceticism of the savage churchman seems here to have been
embittered by even less worthy considerations.
-----
Footnote 901:
There cannot be the slightest doubt that Ælfgyfu was Eádwig’s wife, or
that she was separated from him on the ground of too near
consanguinity. The charter, Cod. Dipl. No. 1201, which is in every
respect an authentic document, mentions her as “Ælfgyfu, ðæs cynges
wíf,” the king’s wife; and this, in addition to herself, was witnessed
by her mother Æðelgyfu, by four bishops, and by three principal
noblemen of the court. If that charter be not genuine, there is not
one genuine in the whole Codex Diplomaticus, and I cannot see the
shadow of a reason to question it, as Lingard has done. The reader
will probably be glad to see it, as it occurs in _two_ manuscripts,
the Cotton MSS. Claud. B. vi. fol. 54. and C. ix. fol. 112, one copy
being in the original Saxon, the other a statement in Latin drawn up
from it.
“Ðis is seó gerǽdnes ðe Byrhtelm
biscop and Æðelwold abbud hæfdon
ymbe hira landgehwerf: ðæt is ðonne
ðe se biscop gesealde ða hída æt
Cenintúne intó ðǽre cyricean æt
Abbendúne tó écan yrfe; and se
abbud gesealde ðæt seofontyne hýda
æt Crydanbricge ðán biscope tó
écnesse, ge on lífe ge æfter lífe;
and hí eác ealra þinga gehwyrfdon
ge on cwican ceápe ge on óðrum, swá
swá hí betwihs him gerǽddon. And
ðis wæs Eádwiges leáf cyninges; and
ðis syndon ða gewitnessa. Ælfgifu
ðæs cininges wíf, and Æðelgyfu, ðæs
cyninges wífes módur, Ælfsige
biscop, Osulf biscop, Coenwald
biscop, Byrhtnóð ealdorman, Ælfheáh
cyninges discþegn, Eádríc his
bródur.”
“This is the agreement that bishop Byrhthelm and abbot Æðelwold made
about their exchange of lands: that is then, that the bishop gave the
hides at Kennington to the church at Abingdon for an eternal
inheritance; and the abbot gave the bishop the seventeen hides at
Crida’s bridge, for ever both during life and after life: and they also
exchanged every thing upon the lands, both live stock and other, as
they agreed between them. And this was by leave of king Eádwig; and
these are the witnesses: Ælfgyfu the king’s wife, and Æðelgyfu, the
king’s wife’s mother, bishop Ælfsige, bishop Oswulf, bishop Coenwald,
Byrhtnoð the ealdorman, Ælfheáh the king’s dapifer, Eádríc his
brother.”
The Latin abstract of this important document is as follows:—“Dominus
autem abbas Æðelwoldus commutationem eiusdem terrae, id est Cenintun,
concedente eodem rege, egit apud Brihtelmum episcopum. In cuius
vicissitudine ipse episcopus accepit illam villam quae appellatur
Crydanbricge. Testes autem fuerunt huius commutationis Ælfgifa regis
uxor, et Æðelgifa mater eius, Ælfsige episcopus, Osulfus episcopus,
Kenwald episcopus, et multi alii.” The date of this document is 956,
in which year Eádwig came to the throne, and therefore certainly
subsequent to the coronation, the celebrated scene of Dúnstán’s
insolence. The prelates and nobles present were Ælfsige bishop of
Winchester, Oswulf bishop of Ramsbury, Cénwald bishop of Worcester,
Byrhthelm bishop of London, Æðelwald then abbot of Abingdon and
afterwards the celebrated bishop of Winchester—the Father of the
Monks, as he was called; Byrhtnóð the ealdorman an equally decided
patron of the monastic order; Ælfheáh no less a man than the dapifer
regis, or seneschal of Eádwig’s house. This then was not a thing done
in a corner, and the testimony is conclusive that Ælfgyfu was Eádwig’s
queen. It is also beyond doubt that, in the year 958, Oda separated
Eádwig from his wife on the ground of their being too nearly related:
one of the MSS. of the Saxon Chronicle says clearly, “Her on ðissum
geare Oda arcebiscop tótwǽmde Eádwi cyning and Ælfgyfe, forðám ðe hí
wǽron tó gesybbe.” Chron. Sax. an. 958. And Florence of Worcester,
drawing from an independent authority, but evidently confused by the
slanderous tales which had been spread of Eádwig, confirms the
Chronicle, saying:—“Sanctus Odo Doruberniae archiepiscopus regem
Westsaxonum Eádwium et Ælfgivam, vel quia, ut fertur, propinqua illius
extitit, vel quia illam sub propria uxore adamavit, ab invicem
separavit.” Flor. Wig. an. 958. William of Malmesbury speaks of her as
“uxor, proxime cognata” (Gest. Reg. § 147, i. 223), but soon after
calls her _ganea_ and _pellex_ in choice monkish style. Wendover and
Paris are even more insolent in their phraseology, but still there is
the unlucky admission of a marriage:—“Huic [sc. Eádwig] quaedam mulier
inepta, licet natione praecelsa [certainly very high birth indeed if
Ælfgyfu was too near a relative of the king] cum adulta filia per
nefandum familiaritatis lenocinium adhaerebat, ut sese vel filiam suam
sub coniugali titulo sociaret.” Wendov. i. 404. They go on to
insinuate that there was an improper familiarity between the king and
both the women. With this I am not at all concerned: Eádwig may have
been a disorderly young prince, as there have been other disorderly
young princes,—as his much-belauded brother Eádgar _was_ in the
highest degree. The ladies _may_ have been more than commonly
depraved. But it may be observed that our general experience is not in
favour of a wife’s permitting her husband to be guilty of lascivious
conduct towards another woman in her presence, or of a married
daughter’s conniving at her husband’s irregularities with her own
mother. Not a word have we of this disgusting insinuation in the
Chronicle, or Florence,—himself a monk,—or Æðelweard, or Huntingdon:
and the two latter speak of Eádwig in terms very far removed from
those in which the adherents of Dúnstán’s cause have chosen to
characterize him:—“Quin successor eius Eáduuig in regnum, qui et, prae
nimia etenim pulchritudine, Pancali sortitus est nomen a vulgo
secundi. Tenuit namque quadriennio per regnum amandus.” Æðelw.
Chronic. iv. 8. “Rex autem praedictus Edwi non illaudabiliter regni
infulam tenuit. Edwi rex anno regni sui quinto cum in principio regni
eius decentissime floruerit, prospera et laetabunda exordia mors
immatura perrupit.” Hen. Hunt. lib. v. We must be excused for
preferring this sort of record to the interested exaggerations of such
biographers as Bridferð, whom the remainder of his work proves to have
been either a very weak and credulous person or a very great rogue,
or—as not unfrequently happens—perhaps both at once.
-----
The history of mediæval Europe show’s with what awful effect this
tremendous power was wielded by unscrupulous popes and prelates,
whenever it suited their purposes not to connive at marriages which,
according to their teaching, were incestuous. But amidst the striking
cases on record—the cases of kings and nobles—we look in vain for a true
measure of the misery which these prohibitions must have entailed upon
the humbler members of society, who possessed neither the influence to
compel nor the wealth to purchase dispensations from an arbitrary and
oppressive rule. The sense and feeling of mankind at once revolt against
restrictions for which neither the law of God, nor the dictates of
nature supply excuse, and which resting upon a complicated calculation
of affinity, were often the means of betraying the innocent and ignorant
into a condition of endless wretchedness. But they were invaluable
engines of extortion, and instruments of malice; they led to the
intervention of the priest with the family, in the most intolerable
form; they furnished weapons which could be used with almost
irresistible effect against those whom nothing could reach but the tears
perhaps and broken heart of a beloved companion. And therefore they were
steadily upheld till the great day of retribution came, which involved
so many traditions of superstition and error, so many engines of
oppression and fraud, in one common and undistinguishing ruin: τὰ πρὶν
δὲ πελώρια νῦν ἀϊστοῖ—things mighty indeed have perished away from the
world; but thrice blessed was the day which left us free and unshackled
to pursue the noblest and purest impulses of our human nature.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CLERGY AND MONKS.
The almost total absence of documentary evidence leaves us in great
doubt as to the condition of the church in England previous to the
organization brought about by Theodore. It is nevertheless probable that
it followed in all essential points the course which characterized other
missionary establishments. The earliest missionaries were for the most
part monks; but Augustine was accompanied by clerics also[902], and in
every case the conversion of a district was rapidly followed by the
establishment of a cathedral or a corresponding ecclesiastical
foundation. These were at first central stations, from which the
assembled clergy sallied forth to visit the neighbouring villages and
towns, and preach the tidings of salvation: the necessities of daily
provision, the attainment of greater security for their persons, the
mutual aid and consolation in the perils and difficulties of their task,
all supplied motives in favour of a cœnobitical mode of life: monks
and clerics were confounded together through the circumstances of the
adventure in which they shared; nay the very administration of those
rites by which the imagination of the heathen Saxons was so strongly
worked upon, could only be conducted on a sufficiently imposing scale by
an assemblage of ecclesiastics. To this must be added the protection to
be derived from settling on one spot, in the immediate neighbourhood of
a royal vill, and under the safeguard of the royal power: for though the
residences of kings were rarely in cities, yet their proximity offered
much more secure guarantees than the outlying villages and clearings in
the mark; even as the general tendencies of courtly life were likely to
present fewer points of opposition than the characteristic bigotry of
heathen, _i. e._ rural populations. This combination of circumstances
probably led at an early period to that approximation between the modes
of life of monks and clerks, which at the close of the eighth century
Chrodogang succeeded in enforcing in his archbishopric of Metz, but
which had been attempted four centuries earlier by Eusebius of
Vercelli[903]. Both the Roman and Scottish missionaries followed the
same plan, which indeed appears to be the natural one, and to have been
generally adopted on all similar occasions, whether in ancient Germany,
in Peru or in the most modern missions of Australia or New Zealand. In
Beda’s Ecclesiastical History, which in these respects no doubt was
founded upon ancient and contemporary records, we frequently read of
prelates leaving their monasteries (by which general name churches as
well as collections of monks are designated) to preach the Gospel and
administer the rite of baptism in distant villages[904]. But this system
had also inconveniences of no slight character; the distance of the
converts from the church, the necessity for daily superintendence and
continual exhortation on the part of the preacher, the very danger and
fatigue of repeated journeys into rude, uncultivated parts of the
country, must have soon forced upon the clergy the necessity of
providing other machinery than they as yet possessed. The multiplication
of centres of instruction was the first and greatest point to be
ensured; whereby a more constant intercourse between the neophyte and
the missionary might be attained. This had long been secured in other
countries by the appointment of single presbyters to reside in single
districts, under the general direction of the bishop; or, where
circumstances required it, by the settlement of several presbyters under
an archipresbyter or archpriest, who was responsible for the conduct of
his companions. And as the district of the bishop himself commonly went
by the name of a diocese or parish, both these terms were applied to
denote the smaller circuit within which the presbyter was expected to
exert himself for the propagation of the faith, and the due performance
of the established rites, and to perform such functions as had been
entrusted to the ministers of the faithful, for the better management of
the ecclesiastical affairs of the congregation. The custom of the
neighbouring countries of Gaul offered sufficient evidence of the
practicability of such an arrangement, which had long been in use in
older established churches: we may therefore readily suppose that so
beneficial a system would be adopted with all convenient speed in
England. As long as the possessions of the clergy were confined to a
small plot whereon their church was built, and while they depended for
support upon the contributions in kind which the rude piety of their new
converts bestowed, the bishops could naturally not proceed to plant
these clerical colonies of their own authority: though, as soon as they
became masters of vills and manors and estates of their own, they
probably adopted the plan of sending single presbyters into them, partly
to discharge the clerical duties of their station, partly to act as
stewards, administrators or bailiffs of the property, the proceeds of
which were paid over to the episcopal church, and laid out at the
discretion of the bishop[905]. But the zeal of the people could here
assist the benevolent objects of the clergy. The inconvenience of having
a distance to traverse in order to attend the ministrations of religion,
the desire to aid in the meritorious work of the conversion, the earnest
hope to establish a peculiar claim upon the favour of Heaven, nay
perhaps even the less worthy motives of vanity and ambition, disposed
the landowner to raise a church upon his own estate for the use of
himself and his surrounding tenants or friends. From a very early period
this disposition was cultivated and encouraged; and the bishops
relinquished the patronage of the church to the founder, reserving of
course to themselves the canonical subjection and consecration of the
presbyter who was ordained to the title. During the seventh century this
had become common in the Frankish empire, and Theodore followed, or
introduced, the same rule in this country[906]. Whether under this
influence or not, we find churches to have so arisen during his
government of the English sees, whose sole archbishop he was. Beda
incidentally mentions the dedication by John of Beverley of churches,
for Puch and Addi, two Northumbrian noblemen, and these were no doubt
private foundations[907]. We still possess various regulations of
Theodore, and of nearly contemporary prelates, which refer to such
separate churches, proving how very general they had become, and how
strictly they required to be guarded against the avarice or other
unworthy motives of the founders, and the simoniacal practices both of
priest and layman. In the thirty-eighth chapter of his Capitula[908] we
find the following directions:—“Any presbyter who shall have obtained a
parish by means of a price, is absolutely to be deposed, seeing that he
is known to hold it contrary to the discipline of ecclesiastical rule.
And likewise, he who shall by means of money have expelled a presbyter
lawfully ordained to a church, and so have obtained it entirely for
himself; which vice, so widely diffused, is to be remedied with the
utmost zeal. Also it is to be forbidden both to clerks and laics, that
no one shall presume to give any church whatever to a presbyter, without
the licence and consent of the bishop.” These churches frequently were
granted to abbeys or to the bishops themselves; and in the latter case
they were served by priests especially appointed thereunto from the
cathedral[909]. At this early period when tithes were not demandable as
matter of right, and when the founders of these churches were already
betraying a tendency to speculate in church-building, by claiming for
themselves the _altare_ or produce of the voluntary oblations of the
faithful, the bishops found it necessary to insist that every church
should be endowed with a sufficient glebe or estate in land: the amount
fixed was one hide, equivalent to the estate of a single family, which,
properly managed, would support the presbyter and his attendant clerks.
Archbishop Ecgberht rules[910]: “Ut unicuique aecclesiae vel una mansa
integra absque alio servitio attribuatur, et presbyteri in eis
constituti non de decimis neque de oblationibus fidelium nec de domibus,
neque de atriis vel hortis iuxta aecclesiam positis, neque de
praescripta mansa, aliquod servitium faciant, praeter aecclesiasticum:
et si aliquod amplius habuerint, inde senioribus suis, secundum patriae
morem, debitum servitium impendant.” And this regulation, though
probably already established by custom, obtained the force of law in the
Frankish empire, by a constitution of Hludwich in 816[911]. This
glebe-land the bishop seems not to have been able to interfere with, so
as to alienate it from the particular church, in favour of another, even
when both churches were within his own subjection[912].
Footnote 902:
“Clerici extra sacros ordines constituti.” Beda, H. E. i. 27. Gregory
contemplated the marriage and separate dwelling of these persons. But
for a long time it is improbable that any such arrangement could take
place. Augustine separated his monks from the canons who had
accompanied him (the presbyters he was to obtain in the neighbouring
countries of Gaul: see Gregory’s Epistles to Theodoric and Theodbert,
and to Brunhild; Bed. Op. Min. ii. 234, 235), placing the latter in
Christchurch, Canterbury. See Lingard, Ang. Sax. Church, i. 152, 153.
But this sort of separation cannot have been always practicable. The
Scottish missionaries were not all monks. Beda, H. E. iii. 3.
Footnote 903:
Neander, Gesch. der Relig. u. Kirche, i. 322; ii. 553. Lingard, Aug.
Sax. Church, i. 150. Chrodogang’s institution is thus described by
Paulus in his Gest. Episc. Mettens. “Hic clerum adunavit, et ad instar
coenobii intra claustrorum septa conversari fecit, normamque eis
instituit, qualiter in ecclesia militare deberent; quibus annonas
vitaeque subsidia sufficienter largitus est, ut perituris vacare
negotiis non indigentes, divinis solummodo officiis excubarent.”
Pertz, ii. 268. Chrodogang’s rule is preserved in Labbé, Concil. vii.
1444. Harduin, Concil. iv. 1181. See Eichhorn, Deut. Staatsr. i. 760,
§ 179. It is in many respects similar to the rule of Benedict of
Nursia, upon which it appears to have been modelled.
Footnote 904:
“Quadam autem die dum parochiam suam circuiens, monita salutis omnibus
ruribus, casis et viculis largiretur, nec non etiam nuper baptizatis
ad accipiendam Spiritus sancti gratiam manum imponeret,” etc. Beda,
Vit. Cuthb. c. 29. This however is perhaps rather to be considered as
an episcopal visitation. But there is abundant evidence that at first
the custom was such as the text describes. It is said thus of Aidan,
the Scottish bishop in Northumberland: “Erat in villa regia non longe
ab urbe de qua praefati sumus [i. e. Bamborough]. In hac enim habens
aecclesiam et cubiculum, saepius ibidem diverti ac manere, atque inde
ad praedicandum circumquaque exire consueverat: quod ipsum et in aliis
villis regis facere solebat, utpote nil propriae possessionis, excepta
aecclesia sua et adiacentibus agellulis, habens.” Beda, H. E. iii. 17.
This was a small wooden church, and certainty never a cathedral. But
the early custom of the Scottish church in Northumberland is further
described by Beda: and one can only lament that it was not much longer
maintained: for his own words show that he is contrasting it with the
custom of his own times, nearly a century later; he says: “Quantae
autem parsimoniae, cuiusque continentiae fuerit ipse [i. e. Colman]
cum praedecessoribus suis, testabatur etiam locus ille quem regebant,
ubi abeuntibus eis, excepta aecclesia, paucissimae domus repertae
sunt; hoc est, illae solummodo, sine quibus conversatio civilis esse
nullatenus poterat. Nil pecuniarum absque pecoribus habebant. Si quid
enim pecuniae a divitibus accipiebant, mox pauperibus dabant. Nam
neque ad susceptionem potentium saeculi, vel pecunias colligi vel
domus praevideri necesse fuit, qui nunquam ad aecclesiam nisi
orationis tantum, et audiendi verbi Dei causa veniebant.... Tota enim
fuit tunc solicitudo doctoribus illis Deo serviendi, non saeculo; tota
cura cordis excolendi non ventris. Unde et in magna erat veneratione
tempore illo religionis habitus; ita ut ubicunque clericus aliquis aut
monachus adveniret, gaudentur ab omnibus tanquam Dei famulus
exciperetur: etiam si in itinere pergens inveniretur, adcurrebant, et
flexa cervice vel manu signari, vel ore illius se benedici gaudebant;
verbis quoque horum exhortatoriis diligenter auditum praebebant. Set
et diebus Dominicis ad aecclesiam, sive ad monasteria certatim, non
reficiendi corporis, sed audiendi sermonis Dei gratia confluebant: et
si quis sacerdotum in vicum forte deveniret, mox congregati in unum
vicani, verbum vitae ab illo expetere curabant. Nam neque alia ipsis
sacerdotibus aut clericis vicos adeundi, quam praedicandi, baptizandi,
infirmos visitandi, et, ut breviter dicam, animas curandi causa fuit:
qui in tantum erant ab omni avaritiae peste castigati, ut nemo
territoria ac possessiones ad construenda monasteria, nisi a
potentibus saeculi coactus acciperet. Quae consuetudo per omnia
aliquanto post haec tempora in aecclesiis Nordanhymbrorum servata
est.” Bed. H. E. iii. 26. Of Ceadda we learn that after his
consecration as bishop of York, he was accustomed, “oppida, rura,
casas, vicos, castella, propter evangelizandum, non equitando, sed
apostolorum more pedibus incedendo peragrare.” Ibid. iii. 21. About
the same period we learn from Beda, that Cuthbert used to make
circuits for the purpose of preaching: “Erat quippe moris _eo tempore_
populis Anglorum, ut veniente in villam clerico vel presbytero, cuncti
ad eius imperium verbum audituri confluerent.” Ibid. iv. 27. The words
_eo tempore_ also show that in Beda’s time this custom was no longer
observed, which is naturally explained by the existence of
parish-churches. The custom of itinerant preachers in the west of
England is also noted about the same period, viz. 680. “Cum vero
aliqui, sicut illis regionibus moris est, praesbyteri sive clerici
populares vel laicos praedicandi causa adiissent, et ad villam
domumque praefati patrisfamilias venissent,” etc. Vit. Bonifac. Pertz,
ii. 334.
Footnote 905:
If a bishop found it convenient to build a church out of his own
diocese, the ecclesiastical authority remained to the bishop in whose
diocese it was built. “Si quis episcopus in alienae civitatis
territorio aecclesiam aedificare disponit, vel pro agri sui aut
aecclesiastici utilitate, vel quacunque sui opportunitate, permissa
licentia, quia prohiberi hoc votum nefas est, non praesumat
dedicationem, quae illi omnimodis reservanda est in cuius territorio
aecclesia assurgit; reservata aedificatori episcopo hac gratia, ut
quos desiderat clericos in re sua videre, ipsos ordinet is cuius
territorium est; vel si iam ordinati sunt, ipsos habere acquiescat: et
omnis aecclesiae ipsius gubernatio ad eum, in cuius civitatis
territorio aecclesia surrexit, pertinebit. Et si quid ipsi aecclesiae
fuerit ab episcopo conditore conlatum, is in cuius territorio est,
auferendi exinde aliquid non habeat potestatem. Hoc solum aedificatori
episcopo credidimus reservandum.” Concil. Arelat. iii. cap. xxxvi.
A.D. 452.
Footnote 906:
Elmham says of Theodore:—“Hic excitavit fidelium voluntatem, ut in
civitatibus et villis aecclesias fabricarentur, parochias
distinguerent, et assensus regios his procuravit, ut siqui
sufficientes essent, super proprium fundum construere aecclesias,
eorundem perpetuo patronatu gauderent; si inter limites alterius
alicuius dominii aecclesias facerent, eiusdem fundi domini notarentur
pro patronis.” Such churches had nevertheless at first not the full
privileges of parish-churches. The twenty-first canon of the Council
of Agda decreed: “Si quis etiam extra parochias, in quibus est
legitimus ordinariusque conventus, oratorium in agro habere voluerit,
reliquis festivitatibus, ut ibi missas teneat, propter fatigationem
familiae, iusta ordinatione permittimus. Pascha vero, Natale Domini,
Epiphania, Ascensionem Domini, Pentecosten, et Natalem sancti Johannis
Baptistae, vel si qui maximi dies in festivitatibus habentur, non nisi
in civitatibus, aut in parochiis teneant. Clerici vero, si qui in
festivitatibus quas supradiximus, in oratoriis, nisi iubente aut
permittente episcopo, missas facere aut tenere voluerint, a communione
pellantur.”—Concil. Agathense, A.D. 506. cap. xxi. That there were at
this period parish-churches in Gaul, served by a single presbyter,
appears from other decisions usually attributed to this council, but
really published by the Council of Albon, held eleven years later.
They are in fact not found in the three oldest MSS. of the Concilium
Agathense. “Diacones vel presbyteri in parochia constituti de rebus
aecclesiae sibi creditis nihil audeant commutare, vendere vel donare,
quia res sacratae Deo esse noscuntur.... Quicquid parochiarum
presbyter de aecclesiastici iuris proprietate distraxerit, inane
habeatur. Presbyter, dum diocesim tenet, de his quae emerit ad
aecclesiae nomen scripturam faciat, aut ab eius quam tenuit aecclesiae
ordinatione discedat.” Concil. Epaonense. A.D. 517. As late as the
time of Eádgár a regulation was made in England as to the payment of
tithe by a landowner who happened to have a church with a churchyard
upon his estate. “If there be any thane who has a church with a
churchyard upon his bookland, let him give the third part of his tithe
to his church. But if any one have a church that has no churchyard,
let him give his priest what he will out of the nine parts,”—that is
out of what remains after the payment of his tithe to the cathedral
church. Eádg. i. § 2. Thorpe, i. 262. Probably there were many such
churches in existence, which had descended together with the estates
from the first founders, and whose owners could not agree with the
ecclesiastical authorities as to their liabilities. The right of
patronage was abused unfortunately at a very early period, both by
clerics and laymen, as we learn abundantly from the decrees of the
several provincial councils.
Footnote 907:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. v. 4, 5.
Footnote 908:
Thorpe, ii. 73. Kunstmann, Poenit. p. 121.
Footnote 909:
As early as 587, I find a grant of a parish-church to the monastery of
St. Peter at Lyons, by Gerart and his wife Gimbergia, on the ground of
their daughter being professed there: “propterea cedimus et donamus
nos vobis aliquid de rebus propriis iuris nostri ... hoc est ecclesia
de Darnas cum decimis et parochia.” Bréquigny, Dipl. Chartar. i. 83.
Bréquigny, Mabillon, and the editors of the Gallia Nova Christiana,
all concur in recognising the genuineness of this charter.
Footnote 910:
Excerpt. Ecgberhti, § 25. Thorpe, ii. 100.
Footnote 911:
“Volens etiam unamquamque aecclesiam habere proprios sumptus, ne per
huiusmodi inopiam cultus negligerentur divini, inseruit praedicto
edicto, ut super singulas aecclesias mansus tribueretur unus, cum
pensatione legitima et servo et ancilla.” Vita Hludovici Imp. Pertz,
ii. 622. The tenth chapter of Hludwich’s capitulary is drawn up in the
same words as Ecgberht uses, with the sole exception of the Frankish
_mansus_ for the English _mansa_, and it is therefore probable that
both drew from some common and early source; unless indeed we suppose
that the Frankish clergy thought the English custom worthy of
imitation. The proper name for this landed foundation is _dos
aecclesiae_, or as it is called in the Langobardic law (lib. iii. tit.
i. § 46), _mansus aecclesiasticus_. The result of this dotation is
very evident in the next following chapter of the above-quoted
capitulary, by which parish-churches are obviously intended. Cap. xi.
“Statutum est ut, postquam hoc impletum fuerit, unaquaeque aecclesia
suum Presbyterum habeat, ubi id fieri facultas providente episcopo
permiserit.”
Footnote 912:
“Non licet abbati, neque episcopo, terram aecclesiae convertere ad
aliam, quamvis ambae in potestate eius sint. Si mutare vult aecclesiae
terram, cum consensu amborum sit. Si quis vult monasterium suum in
alio loco ponere, cum concilio episcopi et fratrum suorum faciat, et
dimittat in priorem locum presbyterum ad ministeria aecclesiae.”
Capit. Theodori. Thorpe, ii. 64.
-----
But although many churches may have arisen in this manner, a large
proportion of which gradually found their way into the hands of bishops
and abbots, and although these last may have erected churches, as the
necessities of the case demanded, in the various districts over which
they exercised rights of property, the greater number of parish-churches
(_plebes_, _aecclesiae baptismales_, _tituli maiores_) had probably a
very different origin. It had been shown that in all likelihood every
Mark had its religious establishment, its _fanum_, _delubrum_, or
_sacellum_, as the Latin authors call them, its _hearh_, as the
Anglosaxon no doubt designated them[913]; and further, that the priest
or priests attached to these heathen churches had lands—perhaps freewill
offerings too—for their support. It has also been shown that a
well-grounded plan of turning the _religio loci_ to account was acted
upon by all the missionaries, and that wherever a substantial building
was found in existence, it was taken possession of for the behoof of the
new religion. Under such circumstances it would seem that nothing could
be more natural than the establishment of a baptismal church in every
independent mark that adopted Christianity, and that the substitution of
one creed for the other not only did not require the abolition of the
old machinery, but would be much facilitated by retaining it. It is in
this manner then that I understand the assertions of Beda and others,
that certain missionary prelates established churches _per loca_, such
churches being certainly not cathedrals[914] or abbey-churches. There
cannot be the least reason to doubt that parish-churches were generally
established in the time of Beda, less than half a century after the
period to which most of the instances in the notes refer[915]: and it is
not very probable that they were all owing to private liberality. In a
similar manner probably arose the numerous parish-churches which before
the close of the eighth century were founded, especially by the English
missionaries, on the continent of Europe[916]. Thus in the seventh
century in England the ecclesiastical machinery consisted of episcopal
churches served by a body of clerks or monks,—sometimes united under the
same rule, and a sufficient number of whom had the necessary orders of
priests, deacons and the like; probably also churches served by a number
of presbyters under the guidance of an archipresbyter or
archpriest[917], bearing some resemblance to our later collegiate
foundations; and numerous parish-churches established on the sites of
the ancient fanes in the marks, or erected by the liberality of kings,
bishops and other landowners on their own manorial estates. The wealthy
and powerful had also their own private chaplains, who performed the
rites of religion in their oratories[918], and who even at this early
period probably bore the name of handpreostas, by which in much later
times they were distinguished from the túnpreostas, village or parochial
priests[919].
-----
Footnote 913:
Besinga hearh, _fanum_ Besingorum. Cod. Dipl. No. 994.
Footnote 914:
For example, of the Scotch missionaries about the year 635, Beda
reports as follows: “Exin coepere plures per dies de Scottorum regione
venire Brittaniam, atque illis Anglorum provinciis quibus regnavit rex
Osuuald, magna devotione verbum fidei praedicare, et credentibus
gratiam baptismi, quicumque sacerdotali erant gradu praediti,
ministrare. Construebantur ergo aecclesiae per loca, confluebant ad
audiendum verbum populi gaudentes, donabantur munere regis
possessiones, et territoria ad instituenda monasteria.” Hist. Eccl.
iii. 3. Again in Essex, between 650 and 660: “Qui, [i. e. Ced] accepto
gradu episcopatus, rediit ad provinciam, et maiori auctoritate caeptum
opus explens, fecit per loca aecclesias, presbyteros et diaconos
ordinavit, qui se in verbo fidei et ministerio baptizandi adiuvarent,
maxime in civitate quae lingua Saxonum Ythancaestir appellatur; sed et
in illa quae Tilaburh cognominatur; quorum prior locus est in ripa
Pentae amnis, secundus in ripa Tamensis; in quibus collecto examine
famulorum Christi, disciplinam vitae regularis, in quantum rudes adhuc
capere poterant, custodire docuit.” Hist. Eccl. iii. 22. About 690,
Beda says of Cúðberht, “Plures per regiones illas aecclesias, sed et
monasteria nonnulla construxit.” H. E. iv. 28. And it is difficult to
understand the passage about to be cited of anything but heathen
temples in the marks, which the zeal of the bishop of Mercia,
Gearoman, converted into Christian churches, that is separate
parish-churches. A pestilence raged in Essex: one of its kings,
Sigheri, apostatized together with all his part of the people, “and
set about restoring their deserted temples, and adoring images.” To
correct this error, Wulfheri of Mercia, the superior king, sent his
bishop Gearoman: “qui multa agens solertia ... longe lateque omnia
pervagatus, et populum et regem praefatum ad viam iustitiae reduxit:
adeo ut relictis, sive destructis fanis arisque quas fecerant,
aperirent aecclesias, ac nomen Christi, cui contradixerant, confiteri
gauderent, magis cum fide resurrectionis in illo mori, quam in
perfidiae sordibus inter idola vivere cupientes.” Hist. Eccl. iii. 30.
This was in 665.
Footnote 915:
In his Poenitential he gives a general direction as to the penance of
the parish priest who loses his chrism. He says: “Qui autem in plebe
suo [_var._ suum] chrisma perdideret, et eam invenerit, xl dies vel
iii quadragesimas poeniteat.” Bed. Poenit. xxiv. Kunstm. Poenit. p.
165.
Footnote 916:
“Cumque aecclesiarum esset non minima in Hassis et Thyringea multitudo
extructa, et singulis singuli providerentur custodes,” etc. Vit.
Bonif. Pertz, ii. 346. “Praefato itaque regni eius tempore, servus Dei
Willehadus per Wigmodiam aecclesias coepit construere, ac presbyteros
super eas ordinare, qui libere populis monita salutis, ac baptismi
conferrent gratiam.” Vit. Willehad. Pertz, ii. 381. “Aecclesias quoque
destructas restauravit, probatasque personas qui populis monita
salutis darent, singulis quibusque locis praeesse disposuit.” Ibid.
ii. 383. “Testes quoque aecclesiae quas per loca singula construxit,
testes et famulantium Dei congregationes quas aliquibus coadunavit in
locis.” Vit. Liutgari, Pertz, ii. 409. “Itaque more solito, cum omni
aviditate et sollicitudine rudibus Saxonum populis studebat in
doctrina prodesse, erutisque ydolatriae spinis, verbum Dei diligenter
per loca singula serere, aecclesias construere, et per eas singulos
ordinare presbyteros, quos verbi Dei cooperatores sibi ipsi
nutriverat.” Ibid. ii. 411. He also founded a church of canons,
“monasterium, sub regula canonica dominio famulantium,” which
afterwards became a cathedral. When Liutgar and his companions landed
on the little island of Helgoland, they destroyed the heathen temples
and built Christian churches. “Pervenientes autem ad eandem insulam,
destruxerunt omnia eiusdem Fosetis fana quae illuc fuere constructa,
et pro eis Christi fabricaverunt aecclesias.” Pertz, ii. 410. In like
manner Willibrord in Frisia established Christian churches on the
sites of the heathen fanes. “Simul et reliquias beatorum apostolorum
ac martyrum Christi ab eo sperans accipere, ut dum in gente cui
praedicaret, destructis idolis aecclesias institueret, haberet in
promptu reliquias sanctorum quas ibi introduceret; quibusque ibidem
depositis, consequenter in eorum honorem quorum essent illae, singula
quaeque loca dedicaret.” Beda, H. E. v. 11. Again, “Plures per
regiones illas aecclesias, sed et monasteria nonnulla construxit.”
Beda, H. E. v. 11. This was consonant with the wise advice of Pope
Gregory to Augustine, already cited vol. i. p. 332, note 2.
Footnote 917:
As late as the tenth century we read of an archipresbyter at the head
of a church at Ely. Hist. Eliensis, Ang. Sac. i. 603.
Footnote 918:
Æðelberht’s queen Beorhte had a chaplain, bishop Liuthart, previous to
the arrival of Augustine. Beda, H. E. i. 25. Paulinus was Æðelburge’s
chaplain before the conversion of Northumberland. Ibid, ii. 9.
Oidilwald king of Deira maintained Caelin, a brother of bishop Ced, in
his family; “qui ipsi et familae ipsius, verbum et sacramenta fidei,
erat enim presbyter, ministrare solebat.” Ibid. iii. 23. Lastly we
read of Wilfrið, that he was chaplain to Alchfrið of Northumberland,
“desiderante rege ut vir tantae eruditionis et religionis sibi
specialiter individuo comitatu sacerdos esset et doctor.” Ibid. v. 19.
Footnote 919:
The distinction is found in the Chron. Saxon, an. 870. The Saxon
handpreostas is translated in a Latin copy by _capellani clerici_; the
Saxon túnpreostas by _de villis suis presbyteri_.
-----
As early as the fifth century the fourth general council (Chalcedon, an.
451) had laid down the rule that the ecclesiastical and political
establishments should be assimilated as much as possible[920]; and as
the central power was represented by the metropolitans and the bishops,
so the subsidiary authorities had their corresponding functionaries in
the parish priests, priests of collegiate churches and their dependents.
We possess a curious parallel drawn by Walafrid Strabo in the earliest
years of the ninth century, on this subject. In his book De Exordiis
Rerum Aecclesiasticarum (cap. 31), he thus compares the civil and
ecclesiastical polities: “Porro sicut comites quidam Missos suos
praeponunt popularibus, qui minores causas determinent, ipsis maiora
reservent, ita quidam episcopi chorepiscopos habent. Centenarii qui et
centuriones et Vicarii, qui per pagos statuti sunt, Presbyteris Plebei,
qui baptismales aecclesias tenent, et minoribus praesunt Presbyteris,
conferri queunt. Decuriones et Decani, qui sub ipsis vicariis quaedam
minora exercent, Presbyteris titulorum possunt comparari. Sub ipsis
ministris centenariorum sunt adhuc minores qui Collectarii,
Quaterniones, et Duumviri possunt appellari, qui colligunt populum, et
ipso numero ostendunt se decanis esse minores. Sunt autem ista vocabula
ab antiquitate mutuata,” etc[921].
-----
Footnote 920:
“Si qua civitas potestate imperiali novata est aut innovatur, civiles
dispositiones et publicas aecclesiasticarum quoque parochiarum ordines
subsequantur.” Conc. Chalc. an. 451. This was an attempt to bring the
state generally into that condition which would have existed had the
church and the empire not been on terms of hostility when the church
first was founded. Had the heathen creed not stood in the way, from
the very first it is probable that the praefect of the city and the
mayor of the village would have been universally also the Episcopus
and Chorepiscopus of the community: but the χάρισμα κυβερνησέως and
χάρισμα διδασκαλίας would not then have united in the same hands. The
church assumed form and shape under pressure, and passed from a
molluscous into a vertebrated organization through its struggles to
resist persecution on the one hand and heresy on the other. When it
entered into its alliance with the state its outward constitution was
already completed. That alliance is not a metaphysical entity, but an
historical fact.
Footnote 921:
Let us arrange these offices tabularly:—
_Secular._ _Ecclesiastical._
1. Comes. 1. Episcopus.
α. Missus. α. Chorepiscopus. (The
Archdeacon or the Rural
Dean.)
2. Centenarius. Centurio, or 2. Presbyter Plebei qui
Vicarius: qui per pagos baptismalem aecclesiam
constitutus est. habet,
3. Decurio et Decanus. 3. Minor Presbyter tituli.
4. Collectarius. Quaternio.
Duumvir.
The count (in England Ealdorman) and bishop are on one line, and, if
we may anticipate a little for the sake of illustration, we may add
the Eorl of Cnut’s constitution on the one side, and the Metropolitan
on the other. The Missus of the count and the chorepiscopus (in
Strabo’s time yet existing, though less important than his city
brother) are on the second line; nevertheless the Missus partakes of
the comitial dignity, and the episcopal, though grudgingly, is still
vouchsafed to the chorepiscopus. Next in rank is the Centenarius or
president of the Hundred, the officer of the pagus: his equivalent is
the priest in a church where baptism is performed, the peculiar
distinctive of a parish-church. The Decurio or Decanus is on the same
footing as the German Capellanus or Kaplan, who is indeed ordained to
a title, but not with power to administer the sacraments. The Kaplan
is in truth generally attached to the parish-church—a sort of
curate,—and often succeeds to it. But how is it that the parallel can
be carried no further? Is it that the Deacon’s ordination was not
conclusive enough? Or were Collectarii and Duumviri, beadles,
tax-gatherers and bailiffs not dignified enough to compare with even
acolytes and vergers?
-----
Both in spiritual and in temporal matters, the clergymen thus dispersed
over the face of the country were accountable to the bishop, whose
_vicars_ they were taken to be, that is to say, in whose place (“quorum
vice”) they performed their functions. The “presbyteri plebei” or parish
priests had the administration of all the sacraments and rites, except
those reserved to the bishop,—such for instance as confirmation,
ordination, the consecration of churches, the chrism, and the like:
these were denied them, but they could baptize, marry, bury, and
administer the communion. And gradually, as matter of convenience, they
were invested with the internal jurisdiction, as it was called,—the
“iurisdictio fori interni,”—that is to say confession, penance and
absolution, but solely as representatives and vicars of the bishop[922].
-----
Footnote 922:
“De poentitentibus, ut a presbyteris non reconcilientur, nisi
praecipiente episcopo.—Ex concilio Africano.—Ut poenitentibus,
secundum differentiam peccatorum, episcopi arbitrio poenitentiae
tempora decernantur, et ut presbyter, inconsulto episcopo, non
reconciliet poenitentem, nisi absentia episcopi, necessitate
cogente.... Item, Ex concilio Cartaginensi de eadem re. Aurelius
episcopus dixit: ‘Si quisquam in periculo fuerit constitutus, et se
reconciliari divinis altaribus petierit, si episcopus absens fuerit,
debet utique presbyter consulere episcopum, et sic periclitantem eius
praecepto reconciliare: quam rem debemus salubri concilio roborare.’
Ab universis episcopis dictum est: ‘Placet quod sanctitas vestra
necessaria nos instruere dignata est.’ Romani reconciliant hominem
intra absidem: Graeci nolunt. Reconciliatio penitentium in coena
Domini tantum est ab episcopo, et consummata penitentia: si vero
episcopo dificile sit, presbytero potest, necessitatis causa, praebere
potestatem, ut impleat.” Poen. Theodori. Thorpe, ii. 6. Aurelius of
Carthage died in 430.
-----
It was this gradual extension of the powers of the presbyter that
destroyed the distinction between the collegiate churches served by the
archpriest and his clergy, and the church in which a single presbyter
administered the daily rites of religion. The word _parochia_ which at
first had been properly confined to the former churches, became
generally applied to the latter, when the difference between their
spiritual privileges entirely vanished.
In the theory of the early church, the whole district subject to the
rule of the bishop formed but one integral mass: the parochial clergy
even in spirituals were but the bishop’s ministers or vicars, and in
temporals they were accountable to him for every gain which accrued to
the church. This he was to distribute at his own discretion; it is true
that there were canons of the church which in some degree regulated his
conduct, and probably the presbyters of his cathedral, his witan or
council, did not neglect to offer their advice on so interesting a
subject. To him it belonged to assign the funds for the support of the
parochial clergy, out of the share which was commanded to be set apart
for the sustenance of the ministers of the altar: to him also it
belonged to apportion the share which was directed to be applied to the
repairs of the fabric of the churches in his diocese; and he also had
the immediate distribution of that portion which was devoted to the
charitable purposes of relieving the poor and ransoming the enslaved,—a
noble privilege, more valuable in rude days like those than in our
civilized age it could be, even had the sacrilegious hand of time not
removed it from among the jewels of the mitre.
Occasionally, no doubt, the parochial clergy, though supported by their
glebe-lands, had reason to complain that the hospitality or charity of
the bishop, exceeding the bounds of the canonical division, left them
but an insufficient remuneration for their services: and more than one
council found it useful to impress upon the prelate the claims of his
less fortunate or deserving brethren[923]: but on the whole there can be
little question that piety on the one hand and superstition on the other
combined to supply an ample fund for the support of the clerical body;
and that what with free-will offerings, grants of lands, fines, rents,
tithes, compulsory contributions, and the sums paid in commutation of
penance, the clergy in England were at all times provided not only with
the means of comfort, but even with wealth and splendour. The sources
and nature of ecclesiastical income will form the subject of a separate
chapter.
-----
Footnote 923:
“Et ideo quia Carpentoracte convenientes huiusmodi ad nos querela
pervenit, quod ea quae a quibuscumque fidelibus parochiis conferuntur,
ita ab aliquibus episcopis praesumantur, ut aut parum, aut prope
nihil, aecclesiis quibus collata fuerint relinquatur; ut si aecclesia
civitatis eius cui episcopus praeest, ita est idonea, ut Christo
propitio nihil indigeat, quidquid parochiis fuerit derelictum,
clericis qui ipsis parochiis deserviunt, vel reparationibus
aecclesiarum rationabiliter dispensetur,” etc. Concil. Carpentor. an.
527.
-----
As a body the clergy in England were placed very high in the social
scale: the valuable services which they rendered to their
fellow-creatures,—their dignity as ministers and stewards of the
mysteries of the faith,—lastly the ascetical course of life which many
of them adopted, struck the imagination and secured the admiration of
their rude contemporaries. At first too, they were honourably
distinguished by the possession of arts and learning, which could be
found in no other class; and although the most celebrated of their
commentaries upon the Biblical books or the works of the Fathers, do not
now excite in us any very great feelings of respect, they must have had
a very different effect upon our simple progenitors. Whatever state of
ignorance the body generally may have fallen into in the ninth and tenth
centuries, the seventh and eighth had produced men famous in every part
of Europe for the soundness and extent of their learning. To them
England owed the more accurate calculations which enabled the divisions
of times and seasons to be duly settled; the decency, nay even
splendour, of the religious services were maintained by their skilful
arrangement; painting, sculpture and architecture were made familiar
through their efforts, and the best examples of these civilising arts
were furnished by their churches and monasteries: it is probable that
their lands in general supplied the best specimens of cultivation, and
that the leisure of the cloister was often bestowed in acquiring the art
of healing, so valuable in a rude state of society, liable to many ills
which our more fortunate period could, with ordinary care, escape[924].
Their manuscripts yet attract our attention by the exquisite beauty of
the execution; they were often skilled in music, and other pursuits
which at once delight and humanise us. To them alone could resort be had
for even the little instruction which the noble and wealthy coveted:
they were the only schoolmasters[925]; and those who yet preserve the
affectionate regard which grows up between a generous boy and him to
whom he owed his earliest intellectual training, can judge with what
force such motives acted in a state of society so different from our
own. Moreover the intervention of the clergy in many most important
affairs of life was almost incessant. Marriage—that most solemn of all
the obligations which the man and the citizen can contract—was
celebrated under their superintendence: without the instruments which
they prepared no secure transfer of property could be made; and as
arbitrators or advisers, they were resorted to for the settlement of
disputed right, and the avoidance of dangerous litigation. Lastly,
although during the Anglosaxon period we nowhere find them putting
forward that shocking claim to consideration which afterwards became so
common—the being makers of their Creator in the sacrament of the
Eucharist,—we cannot doubt that their calling was supposed to confer a
peculiar holiness upon them; or that the _hád_, the orders, they
received, were taken to remove them from the class of common Christians
into a higher and more sacred sphere.
-----
Footnote 924:
The extraordinary helplessness of early surgery is little appreciated
by us, nor are we duly grateful for the advance in that most noble
study which now secures to the lowest and poorest sufferer,
alleviations once inaccessible to the wealthiest and most powerful. An
example in point occurs to me in the case of Leopold, duke of Austria,
the captor of Coeur de Lion, in 1195. A fall from his horse produced a
compound fracture of the leg, which from the treatment it received
soon mortified. Amputation was necessary, and it was performed by the
duke himself, _holding an axe to the limb, which his chamberlain
struck with a beetle_. “Acciti mox medici apposuerunt quae expedire
credebant; in crastino vero pes ita denigratus apparuit, ut a medicis
incidendus decerneretur; et cum non inveniretur qui hoc faceret,
accitus tandem cubicularius eius, et ad hoc coactus, dum ipse dux
dolabrum manu propria tibiae apponeret, malleo vibrato, vix trina
percussione pedem eius abscidit.” Walt. Heming. i. 210. Wendov. iii.
88. We feel no surprise that death followed such treatment, even
without the excommunication under which the savage duke laboured.
Footnote 925:
We do not sufficiently prize our own advantages, and the blessings
which the mercy of God has vouchsafed to us in this respect. But let
one fact be mentioned, which ought to arrest the attention of even the
least reflecting man. In the ninth century there was not a single copy
of the Old and New Testaments to be found in the whole diocese of
Lisieux. We learn this startling fact from a letter sent by Freculf,
its bishop, to Hrabanus Maurus. “Ad haec vestrae charitatis vigilantia
intendat, quoniam nulla nobis librorum copia suppeditat, etiamsi
parvitas obtusi sensus nostri vigeret: dum in episcopio, nostrae
parvitati commisso, nec ipsos Novi Veterisque Testamenti repperi
libros, multo minus horum expositiones.” Opera Hrabani. Ed. Colvener.
ii. 1.
-----
Great privileges were accordingly given to them in a social point of
view. They enjoyed a high wergyld, an increased mundbyrd, and a
distinguished secular rank. The weofodþegn or servant of the altar who
duly performed his important functions, was reckoned on the same footing
as the secular thane, woroldþegn, who earned nobility and wealth in the
service of an earthly master. The oaths of a priest or deacon were of
more force than those of a free man; and it was rendered easier for them
to rebut accusations by the aid of their clerical compurgators, than for
the simple ceorl or even þegn, and his gegyldan.
It was nevertheless a wise provision that their privileges should not
extend so far as to remove them entirely from participation in the
general interests of their countrymen, or make them aliens from the
obligations which the Anglosaxon state imposed upon all its members.
Personal privileges they enjoyed, like other distinguished members of
the body politic, as long as their conduct individually was such as to
merit them; but they were not cut off entirely from the common burthens
or the common advantages: and this will not unsatisfactorily explain the
immunity which England long enjoyed, from struggles by which other
European states—and in later periods even our own—were convulsed to
their foundations. In their cathedrals and conventual churches, or
scattered through the parishes over all the surface of the land, but
sharing in the interests of all classes, they acted as a body of
mediators between the strong and the weak, repressing the violent,
consoling and upholding the sufferer, and offering even to the
despairing serf the hope of a future rest from misery and subjection.
On the first establishment of conventual bodies we have seen that a
complete immunity had been granted from the secular services to which
all other lands were liable[926]; but that the inconvenience of this
course soon led to its abandonment. It is difficult to say whether this
immunity was at any time extended to the hide, “mansus aecclesiasticus,”
or “dos aecclesiae” of the parish-church: it is on the contrary probable
that it never was so extended; for no hint of the sort occurs in our own
annals or charters; and it is well known that the church lands among the
neighbouring Franks were subject, like those of the laity, to the
burthens of the state[927]. From every hide which passed into clerical
hands, the king could to the very last demand the _inevitable_ dues,
military service, repairs of roads and fortifications; and though it is
not likely that the parish priest was called upon to serve in person, it
is also not likely that he was excused the payment of his quota toward
the arming and support of a substitute in the field[928].
-----
Footnote 926:
Vol. i. 302.
Footnote 927:
Eichhorn, § 114. vol. i. 506.
Footnote 928:
Exemption from _munera personalia_ however was early claimed.
“Presbyteros, diaconos, etc. ... etiam personalium munerum expertes
esse volumus.” L. 6. C. de Episc. et Cleric. i. 3. Hence the king had
an interest in forbidding the ordination of a free man without his
consent. See the formulary in Marculfus, i. 10. See also the fourth
and eighth canons of the Council of Orleans, A.D. 511. and Eichhorn,
i. 484, 485. §§ 94, 96. From those we see that through ordination the
king might lose his rights over the freeman and the master over his
serf. Of the last case there cannot be the slightest doubt in England,
and I should imagine little of the first.
-----
Nor did the legislation of the Teutonic nations contemplate the
withdrawal of the clergy from the authority of the secular tribunals.
The sin of the clergyman might indeed be punished in the proper manner
by his ecclesiastical superior: penance and censure might be inflicted
by the bishop upon his delinquent brother; but the crime of the citizen
was reserved for the cognizance of the state[929].
-----
Footnote 929:
The great argument of the clergy in later times,—in the twelfth
century particularly, when all over Europe the attempt was made to
exempt them from secular jurisdiction,—“that no one ought to be
punished twice for the same offence,” had apparently not yet been
thought of. The penances of the church, by which the sinner was to be
reconciled to God, were still held quite distinct from the sufferings
by which he expiated his violation of the law. Theodore alleviates,
but does not remit, the penance of those whose guilt has bent their
heads to human slavery. Theod. Poen. xvi. § 3. See this argument
stated in the quarrel between Henry II. and Becket: “In contrarium
sentiebat archiepiscopus, ut quos exauctorent episcopi a manu laicali
postmodum non punirentur, quia bis in idipsum puniri viderentur.” Rog.
Wendov. an. 1164. vol. ii. 304. But this was a two-edged argument, as
its upholders soon found, when the laity on the same grounds claimed
exemption from secular punishment for offences committed upon the
persons of the clergy; justly urging, upon the premises, that they
were excommunicated for their acts, and ought not to be subject to a
second infliction. Accordingly in 1176, we find Richard archbishop of
Canterbury attempting to explain away what Becket had so vigorously
advanced: “Nec dicatur quod aliquis bis puniatur propter hoc in
idipsum, nec enim iteratum est, quod ab uno incipitur et ab altero
consummatur,” etc. See his letter to the bishops in An. Trivet. 1176.
p. 82 _seq._ We shall readily admit that the laity ought not to have
been let loose upon the clergy; but upon the same grounds we shall
claim the subjection of the clergy to the secular tribunals for all
secular offences.
-----
This had been the custom of the Franks, even while they permitted the
clergy, who belonged to the class of Roman provincials, to be judged by
the Roman law[930]: it was for centuries the practice in England, and
would probably so have remained had the error of the Conqueror in
separating the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions not prepared the
way for the troublous times of the Henries and Edwards. In the case of
manslaughter, Ælfred commands that the priest shall be secularised
before he is delivered for punishment to the ordinary tribunals[931]:
Æðelred[932] and Cnut[933] decree that he is to be secularised, to
become an outlaw and abjure the realm, and do such penance as the Pope
shall prescribe; and they extend this penalty to other grievous offences
besides homicide. Eádweard the elder enacts that if a man in orders
steal, fight, perjure himself or be unchaste, he shall be subject to the
same penalties as the laity under the same circumstances would be, and
to his canonical penance besides[934]. But the plainest evidence that
the clergy, even including the most dignified of their body, were held
to answer before the ordinary courts, is supplied by the many provisions
in the laws as to the mode of conducting their trials[935]. It could not
indeed be otherwise in a country where every offence was to be tried by
the people themselves.
-----
Footnote 930:
Concil. Autisiodor. an. 578. can. 43. Concil. Matiscon. an. 581. can.
7. “Quodsi quicunque index ... clericum absque causa criminali, id est
homicidio, furto aut maleficio, hoc [scil. iniuriam] facere fortasse
praesumpserit, quamdiu episcopo loci illius visum fuerit, ab
aecclesiae liminibus arceatur.”
Footnote 931:
“If a priest kill another man, let all that he had acquired at home be
given up, and let the bishop deprive him of his orders: then let him
be given up from the minster, unless the lord will compound for the
wergeld.” Ælf. § 21.
Footnote 932:
Leg. Æðelr. ix. § 26. Thorpe, i. 346.
Footnote 933:
Leg. Cnut, ii. § 41. Thorpe, i. 400.
Footnote 934:
Eád. Guð. § 3. Thorpe, i. 168. Yet immediately afterwards Eádweard
says: “If a man in orders fordo himself with capital crime, let him be
seized and held to the bishop’s doom.” Ibid. § 4.
Footnote 935:
See Leg. Wihtr. § 18, 19. Æðelr. ix. § 19-24, 27. Cnut, i. § 5; ii. §
41.
-----
But the most effectual mode of separating the clergy from the other
members of the church yet remains to be considered. He that is permitted
to contract marriage, to enjoy the inestimable blessings of a home, to
connect himself with a family, and give the state dear pledges of his
allegiance, can never cease to be a citizen of that polity in which his
lot is cast. He can be no alien, no machine to be put in motion by
foreign force. Accordingly, although the celibacy of the clergy is a
mere point of discipline (and could therefore be dispensed with at once
were it desired[936]), it has always been pertinaciously insisted upon
by those whose interest it was to destroy the national feeling of the
clergy in every country, and render them subservient to one centralising
power. It is fitting that we enquire how far this was attempted in
England, and how far the attempt succeeded.
-----
Footnote 936:
Whether it will ever be possible to surmount the difficulties which
environ this subject, may be doubted; but it cannot escape any one who
has enjoyed the intimacy of the more enlightened Roman Catholics,
whether cleric or laic, that a strong feeling exists in favour of a
change. In Bohemia and other Slavonic countries, yet in communion with
Rome, the celibacy of the clergy has ever been a stumbling-block and
stone of offence, and has done more than anything else to keep alive
old Hussite traditions. A few years ago so much danger was felt to
lurk in the question, that the Vienna censorship thought fit to
suppress portions of Palaczy’s History, which favoured the national
views. Nor has Germany, at almost any period, lacked thinkers who have
vigorously protested against a practice which they assert to have no
foundation in Holy Writ, and look upon as disastrous to the State.
-----
The perilous position of the early Christians, and especially of the
clergy, rendered it at least matter of prudence that they should not
contract the obligation of family bonds which must prove a serious
hindrance to the performance of their duties. It is therefore easily
conceivable that marriage should in the first centuries have been
discouraged among the members of this particular class. There was also a
tendency among the eastern Christians to engraft upon the doctrines of
the faith, those peculiar metaphysical notions which seem always to have
characterized the oriental modes of thought. The antagonism of spirit
and matter, the degraded—nay even diabolical[937]—nature of the latter,
and the duty of emancipating the spiritual portion of our being from its
trammels, were quite as prominent doctrines of some Christian
communities, as of the Brahman or Buddhist. The holiness of the priest
would, it was thought, be contaminated by his union with a wife; and
thus from a combination of circumstances which in themselves had no
necessary connexion, an opinion came to prevail that a state of celibacy
was the proper one for the ministers of the sacraments. It was at first
recommended, and then commanded, that those who wished to devote
themselves to the especial service of the church, should not contract
the bond of marriage. Even the married citizen who accepted orders was
admonished to separate himself from the society of his wife: and both
were taught that a life of continence for the future would be an
acceptable offering in the sight of God. It seems unnecessary to dilate
upon the fallacy of these views, or to point out the gross and degrading
materialism on which they are ultimately based. The historian, while he
laments, must to the best of his power record the aberrations of human
intelligence, under his inevitable conditions of place and time.
-----
Footnote 937:
Some sects believed the δημιουργός to have been the devil himself; and
as the Saviour is declared to have made the world, identified Jesus
with Satan! Others entirely denied his human nature, on the ground
that the incarnation was a materialising of spirit. The ascetic
practices of the Eastern church had a similar origin.
-----
It is uncertain at what period this restriction was first attempted to
be enforced in the Western Church, but there are early councils which
notice the existence of a strong feeling on the subject[938]. In the
year 376 a Gallic synod excommunicated those who should refuse the
ministrations of a priest on the ground of his marriage[939]. But this
can only prove that at the time there were married priests, whether
living in continence or not, and that certain persons were scandalized
at them. I cannot admit, as some authors have done, that the Council
intended to make such marriages legal; on the contrary, it seems to me
that the intention of the canon is merely to assert the validity of the
sacraments, however unworthy might be the person by whom they were
administered[940]. But restrictions which wound the natural feelings of
men are vain: popes and councils may decree, but they cannot enforce
obedience, and it seems to me that on this particular subject they never
entirely succeeded in carrying out their views. All they did was to
convert a holy and a blessed connexion into one of much lower character,
and to throw the doors wide open to immorality and scandal. The efforts
of Boniface in Germany were particularly directed to this point[941],
and his biographer tells us on more than one occasion of his success in
destroying the influence of married priests. But it may be questioned
whether the same result attended the efforts of the Roman missionaries
in England. It seems to me, on the contrary, that we have an almost
unbroken chain of evidence to show that, in spite of the exhortations of
the bishops, and the legislation of the witan, those at least of the
clergy who were not bound to cœnobitical order, did contract
marriage, and openly rear the families which were its issue. From Eddius
we learn that Wilfrið bishop of York, one of the staunchest supporters
of Romish views, had a son[942]; he does not indeed say that this son
was born in wedlock, nor does any author directly mention Wilfrið’s
marriage: but we may adopt this view of the matter, as the less
scandalous of two alternatives, and as rendered probable by the absence
of all accusations which might have been brought against the bishop on
this score by any one of his numerous enemies. In a charter of
emancipation we find among the witnesses, Ælfsige the priest and his
son[943]: by another document a lady grants a church hereditarily to
Wulfmǽr the priest and his offspring, as long as he shall have any in
orders[944], where a succession of married clergymen is obviously
contemplated. Again we read of Godwine at Worðig bishop Ælfsige’s
son[945], and of the son of Oswald a presbyter[946]. Under Eádweard the
Confessor we are told of Robert the deacon and his son-in-law Richard
Fitzscrob[947], and of Gódríc a son of the king’s chaplain Gódman[948].
-----
Footnote 938:
“Placuit etiam ut si diacones aut presbyteri coniugati ad torum uxorum
suorum redire voluerint,” etc. Concil. Agathense, an. 506. Can. 9.
Footnote 939:
“Si quis secernat se a presbytero qui uxorem duxit, tanquam non
oporteat, illo liturgiam peragente, de oblatione percipere, anathema
sit.” Concil. Gangrense, an. 376. Can. 4. This provision was retained
by Burkhart of Worms in his collection of canons made in the eleventh
century. See Dönniges, Deut. Staatsr. p. 507. Schmidt, Gesch. der
Deutschen, IV Band, lib. 4. cap. 13.
Footnote 940:
This was at least the feeling in the eleventh century. Wendover speaks
in the following terms of the Council of Rome, celebrated by Gregory
the Seventh in 1074:—“Iste papa in synodo generali simoniacos
excommunicavit, uxoratos sacerdotes a divino removit officio, et
laicis missas eorum audire interdixit, novo exemplo et, ut multis
visum est, inconsiderato iudicio, contra sanctorum patrum sententiam,
qui scripserunt, quod sacramenta quae in aecclesia fiunt, baptisma,
chrisma, corpus Christi et sanguis, Spiritu invisibiliter cooperante,
eorundem sacramentorum effectum [habeant], seu per bonos, seu per
malos intra Dei aecclesiam dispensentur; tamen quia Spiritus Sanctus
mystice illa vivificat, nec bonorum meritis amplificantur, nec
peccatis malorum attenuantur. Ex qua re tam grave oritur scandalum, ut
nullius haeresis tempore sancta aecclesia graviori sit schismate
discissa, his pro iustitia, illis contra iustitiam agentibus; porro
paucis continentiam observantibus: aliquibus eam causa lucri ac
iactantiae simulantibus, multis incontinentiam periurio multipliciori
adulterio cumulantibus: ad haec, opportunitate laicis insurgentibus
contra sacros ordines, et se ab omni aecclesiastica subiectione
excutientibus, laici sacra mysteria temerant et de his disputant,
infantes baptizant, sordido aurium humore pro sacro chrismate utentes
et oleo, in extremo vitae viaticum Dominicum et usitatum aecclesiae
obsequium sepulturae a presbyteris uxoratis accipere parvipendunt;
decimas etiam presbyteris debitas igne cremant, corpus Domini a
presbyteris uxoratis consecratum pedibus saepe conculcant, sanguinem
Domini voluntarie frequenter in terram effundunt.” Wend. ii. 13. See
the Acts of this Council in Hardouin, vi. col. 1521 _seq._ In the
following year, 1075, the abbot of Pontoise was insulted and beaten in
a council held at Paris, for defending this decree of Gregory.
Footnote 941:
Boniface appears to have been quite as earnest in the eighth as
Dunstan was in the tenth century. We are told of him in Thuringia,
that in accordance with the instructions of the Apostolical Pontiff,
“senatores plebis totiusque populi principes verbis spiritalibus
affatus est; eosque ad veram agnitionis viam et intelligentiae lucem
provocavit, quam olim ante maxima siquidem ex parte pravis seducti
doctoribus perdiderunt; sed et sacerdotes ac presbiteros, quorum alii
religioso Dei se omnipotentis cultu incoluerunt, alii quidem
fornicaria contaminati pollutione castimoniae continentiam, quam
sacris servientes altaribus servare debuerunt, amiserant, sermonibus
evangelicis, quantum potuit, a malitiae pravitate ad canonicae
constitutionis rectitudinem correxit, ammonuit, atque instruxit.”
Pertz, ii. 341. “Quoniam cessante religiosorum ducum dominatu,
cessavit etiam in eis Christianitatis et religionis intentio, et falsi
seducentes populum introducti sunt fratres, qui sub nomine religionis
maximam haereticae pravitatis introduxerunt sectam. Ex quibus est
Torhtwine et Berhthere, Eanberhct et Hunræd, fornicatores et adulteri,
quos iuxta apostolum Dominus iudicavit Deus.” Pertz, ii. 344. These
seem all to have been Anglosaxons.
“Et recedens, non solum invitatus Baguariorum ab Odilone duce, sed et
spontaneus, visitavit incolas; mansitque apud eos diebus multis,
praedicans et evangelizans verbum Dei; veraeque fidei ac religionis
sacramenta renovavit, et destructores aecclesiarum populique
perversores abigebat. Quorum alii pridem falso se episcopatus gradu
praetulerunt, alii etiam presbyteratus se officio deputabant, alii
haec atque alia innumerabilia fingentes, magna ex parte populum
seduxerunt. Sed quia sanctus vir iam Deo ab infantia deditus, iniuriam
Domini sui non ferens, supradictum ducem cunctumque vulgus ab iniusta
haereticae falsitatis secta et fornicaria sacerdotum deceptione
coercuit; et provinciam Baguariorum, Odilone duce consentiente, in
quattuor divisit parochias, quattuorque his praesidere fecit
episcopos, quos ordinatione scilicet facta, in episcopatus gradum
sublevant.” Pertz, ii. 346.
“Domino Deo opitulante, ac suggerente sancto Bonifatio archiepiscopo,
religionis christianae confirmatum est testamentum, et orthodoxorum
patrum synodalia sunt in Francis correcta instituta, cunctaque canonum
auctoritate emendata atque expiata, et tam laicorum iniusta
concubinarum copula partim, exhortante sancto viro separata est, quam
etiam clericorum nefanda cum uxoribus coniunctio seiuncta ac
segregata.” Pertz, ii. 346. The anonymous author of the life of
Boniface tells of a bishop Gerold, who held the see of Mayence: he had
a son who succeeded him in the bishopric. Pertz, ii. 354.
Footnote 942:
“Sanctus Pontifex noster de exilio cum filio suo proprio rediens,”
etc. Vit. Wilfr. cap. 57.
Footnote 943:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1352.
Footnote 944:
“Wulfmǽr preóst and his bearnteám.” Cod. Dipl. No. 946.
Footnote 945:
“Godwine æt Worðige, Ælfsiges bisceopes sunu.” Chron. Sax. an. 1001.
This however was not confined to England: we hear of more than one
Frankish bishop having children: for example, “Anchisus dux egregius,
filius Arnulfi, episcopi Mettensis.” Ann. Xantens. an. 647. Pertz, ii.
219. See also Paul. Gest. Ep. Mettens. Pertz, ii. 264. [See also T. F.
Klitsche, “Geschichte des Cölibats,” etc. Augsb. 1830; J. A. Zaccaria.
Storia Polemica del Sagro celibato, Roma, 1774; and Suppl. to Engl.
Cyclop., Arts and Sciences, _art._ Celibacy.]
Footnote 946:
“Filius Oswaldi presbyteri.” Hist. Rams., cap. xlv.
Footnote 947:
“Robertum diaconem et generum eius, Ricardum filium Scrob.... quos
plus caeteris rex diligebat.” Flor. Wig. an. 1052.
Footnote 948:
“Godricum regis capellani Godmanni filium, abbatem constituit.” Flor.
Wig. an. 1053.
-----
It may no doubt be argued that in some of these instances the children
may have been the issue of marriages contracted before the father
entered into orders; but it is obvious that this was not the case with
all of them, nor is there any proof that any were so. On the other hand
we have evidence of married priests which it would be difficult to
reject. Florence speaks of the newly born son of a certain _presbytera_,
or priest’s wife[949]: I have already cited a passage from Simeon of
Durham which distinctly mentions a married presbyter[950], about the
year 1045: and the History of Ely records the wife and family of an
archipresbyter in that town[951]. Lastly we are told over and over again
that one principal cause for the removal of the canons or prebendaries
from the cathedrals and collegiate churches by Æðelwold and Oswald was
the contravention of their rule by marriage.
-----
Footnote 949:
Flor. Wig. an. 1035. It is right to add that some MSS. of Florence
read _presbyteri_, not _presbyterae_.
Footnote 950:
See vol. i. 145. “At ille qui ipsa nocte cum uxore dormierat,” etc.
Sim. Dun. Eccl. Dun. cap. xlv.
Footnote 951:
“Mox ingens pestis arripuit domum illius sacerdotis; quae conjugem
eius ac liberos eius cita morte percussit, totamque progeniem funditus
extirpavit.” Hist. Eliens. Anglia Sacra, i. 603.
-----
The frequent allusion to this subject by the kings in various
enactments, serve to show very clearly that the clergy would not submit
to the restraint attempted to be enforced upon them. But we have a still
more conclusive evidence in the words of an episcopal charge delivered
by archbishop Ælfric. He says, “Beloved, we cannot now compel you by
force to observe chastity, but we admonish you to observe it, as the
ministers of Christ ought, and as did those holy men whom we have
already mentioned, and who spent all their lives in chastity[952].” It
is thus very clear that the clergy paid little regard to such
admonishments, unsupported by secular penalties. In this, as perhaps in
some other cases, the good sense and sound feeling of the nation
struggled successfully against the authority of the Papal See. In fact,
though spirituality were the pretext, a most abominable slavery to
materialism lies at the root of all the grounds on which the Roman
prelates founded the justification of their course. That they had
ulterior objects in view may easily be surmised, though these may have
been but dimly described and hesitatingly confessed, until Gregory the
Seventh boldly and openly avowed them. Had the Roman church ventured to
argue that the clergy ought to be separated entirely from the nation and
the state, nay from humanity itself, for certain definite purposes and
ends, it would at least have deserved the praise of candour; and much
might have been alleged in favour of this view while the clergy were
still strictly missionaries exposed to the perils and uncertainties of a
daily struggle. But, in an absurd idolatry of what was miscalled
chastity, to proscribe the noblest condition and some of the highest
functions of man, was to set up a rule essentially false, and literally
hold out a premium to immorality; and so the more reflecting even of the
clergy themselves admitted[953]. Whatever may have been the desire of
the prelates, we may be certain that not only in England, but generally
throughout the North of Europe, the clergy did enter into
quasi-marriages; and as late as the thirteenth century, the priests in
Norway replied to Gregory the Ninth by setting up the fact of
uninterrupted custom[954].
-----
Footnote 952:
Thorpe, ii. 376.
Footnote 953:
In 1102 archbishop Anselm excommunicated married priests, _sacerdotes
concubinarios_; Wendover, who records this act, expresses a doubt
about its prudence. “Hoc autem bonum quibusdam visum est, et quibusdam
periculosum, ne, dum munditias viribus maiores expeterent, in
immunditias labarentur.” Wend. ii. 171. The results at this day in
Ireland are well known, and the case is very similar in the Roman
Catholic part of Hungary. See Paget, Hungary and Transylvania, i. 114.
Shortly before the Reformation, the inconveniences arising from this
state of things were felt to be so intolerable, yet the danger to
society from a strict enforcement of the rule so great, that in some
parts of Europe the bishop licensed their priests so take concubines,
at a settled tariff, and further raised a sum upon each child born.
Erasmus relates that one bishop had admitted to him the issuing of no
less than twelve thousand such licenses in one year. In his diocese
the tax was probably light, the peasants sturdy, and the female
population more than ordinarily chaste. It was not unusual for the
English kings to compel the priests to redeem their _focariae_ or
concubines, which amounts to much the same thing. This occurred in the
years 1129 and 1208. See Wendover, ii. 210; iii. 223.
Footnote 954:
Gregory writes thus upon the subject to Sigurdr, archbishop of
Nidaros: “Sicut ex parte tua fuit propositum coram nobis tam in
diocesi quam in provincia Nidrosensi abusus detestandae consuetudinis
inolevit, quod videlicet sacerdotes inibi existentes matrimonia
contrahunt, et utuntur tanquam laici sic contractis. Et licet tu iuxta
officii tui debitum id curaveris artius inhibere, multi tamen
praetendentes excusationes frivolas in peccatis, scilicet quod felicis
recordationis Hadrianus papa praedecessor noster, tunc episcopus
Albanensis, dum in partibus illis legationis officio fungeretur, hoc
fieri permisisset, quanquam super hoc nullum ipsius documentum
ostendant, perire potius eligunt quam parere, longam super hoc
nichilominus consuetudinem allegando. Cum igitur diuturnitas temporis
peccatum non minuat sed augmentet, mandamus quatenus, si ita est,
abusum huiusmodi studeas extirpare, et in rebelles, si qui fuerint,
censuram aecclesiasticam exercere. Datum Viterbii, xvii Kal. Junii,
anno undecimo.” This is A.D. 1237. Diplom. Norweg. No. 19, vol. i.
pag. 15.
-----
In addition to the clergy who either in their conventual or parochial
churches administered the rites of religion to their flocks, very
considerable monastic establishments existed from an early period in
England. It is true that not every church which our historians call
_monasterium_ was really a monastic foundation, but many of them
undoubtedly were so; and it is likely that they supplied no small number
of presbyters and bishops to the service of the church. The rule of St.
Benedict was well established throughout the West long before Augustine
set foot in Britain; and although monks are not necessarily clergymen,
it is probable that many of the body in this country took holy orders.
Like the clergy the monks were subject to the control of the bishop, and
the abbots received consecration from the diocesan. Till a late period
in fact, there is little reason to suppose that any English monastery
succeeded in obtaining exemption from episcopal visitation: though on
the other hand it is probable that monasteries founded by powerful and
wealthy laymen did contrive practically to establish a considerable
independence. This is the more conceivable, because we cannot doubt that
a great difference did from the first exist between the rules adopted by
various congregations of monks, or imposed upon them by their patrons
and founders, until the time when greater familiarity with Benedict’s
regulations, and the customs of celebrated houses, produced a more
general conformity.
One of the most disputed questions in Anglosaxon history is that
touching the revival of monkery by Dúnstán and his partizans. Its
supposed connexion with the tragical story of Eádwig, and the
dismemberment of England by Eádgár, have lent it some of the attractions
of romance; and by the monastic chroniclers in general, it has very
naturally been looked upon as the greatest point in the progressive
record of our institutions. Connected as it is with some of the most
violent prejudices of our nature, political, professional and personal,
it has not only obtained a large share of attention from ecclesiastical
historians of all ages, but has been discussed with great eagerness, not
to say acrimony, by those who differed in opinion as to the wisdom and
justice of the revival itself. Yet it does not appear to me to have been
brought to the degree of clearness which we should have expected from
the skill and learning of those who have undertaken its elucidation.
Neither the share which Dúnstán took in the great revolution, nor the
extent to which Æðelwold and Oswald succeeded in their plans, are yet
satisfactorily settled; and great obscurity still hangs both over the
manner and the effect of the change.
Few things in history, when carefully investigated, do really prove to
have been done in a hurry. Sudden revolutions are much less common than
we are apt to suppose, and fewer links than we imagine are wanting in
the great chain of causes and effects. Could we place ourselves above
the exaggerations of partizans, who hold it a point of honour to prove
certain events to be indiscriminately right or indiscriminately wrong,
we should probably find that the course of human affairs had been one
steady and very gradual progression; the reputation of individual men
would perhaps be shorn of part of its lustre; and though we should lose
some of the satisfaction of hero-worship, we might more readily admit
the constant action of a superintending providence, operating without
caprice through very common and every-day channels. But it would have
been too much to expect an impartial account of the events which led to
the reformation of the Benedictine order in England; like Luther in the
fifteenth, Dúnstán must be made the principal figure in the picture of
the tenth century: throughout all great social struggles the protagonist
stalks before us in gigantic stature,—glorious as an archangel, or
terrible and hideous as Satan.
The writers who arose shortly after the triumph of the Reformation have
revelled in this fruitful theme. The abuses of monachism,—not entirely
forgotten at the beginning of the seventeenth century,—its undeniable
faults, and the mischief it entails upon society,—judged with the
exaggeration which unhappily seems inseparable from religious polemics,
produced in every part of Europe a succession of violent and headlong
attacks upon the institution and its patrons, which we can now more
readily understand than excuse. But just as little can the calm,
impartial judgment of the historian ratify the indiscriminate praise
which was lavished by the Roman Catholics upon all whom the zeal of
Protestants condemned, the misrepresentations of fact by which they
attempted to fortify their opinions, or the eager credulity which they
showed when any tale, however preposterous, appeared to support their
particular objects. In later times the controversy has been renewed with
greater decency of language, but not less zeal. The champion of
protestantism is the Rev. Mr. Soames: Dr. Lingard takes up the gauntlet
on behalf of his church. It is no intention of mine to balance their
conflicting views as to the character and intentions of Dúnstán and his
two celebrated coadjutors; these have been too deeply tinged by the
ground-colour that lies beneath the outlines. But I propose to examine
the facts upon which both parties seem agreed, though each may represent
them variously in accordance with a favourite theory.
It admits of no doubt whatever that monachism, and monachism under the
rule of St. Benedict, had been established at an early period in this
country[955]; but it is equally certain that the strict rule had very
generally ceased to be maintained at the time when Dúnstán undertook its
restoration. Many of the conventual churches had never been connected
with monks at all; while among the various abbeys which the piety or
avarice of individuals had founded, there were probably numerous
instances where no rule had ever prevailed, but the caprice of the
founders, who _iure dominii_ imposed such regulations as their vanity
suggested, or their industry gleaned from the established orders of
Columba, Benedict, and other credited authorities[956]. The chapters,
whatever their origin, had in process of time slid into that easy and
serene state of secular canons, which we can still contemplate in the
venerable precincts of cathedral closes. The celibacy of the clergy had
not been maintained: and even in the collegiate churches the presbyter
and prebendaries had permitted themselves to take wives, which could
never have been contemplated even by those who would have looked with
indulgence upon that connexion on the part of parish priests. Moreover
in many places, wealthy ease, power, a dignified and somewhat
irresponsible position had produced their natural effect upon the
canons, some of whom were connected with the best families of the state;
so that, in spite of all the deductions which must be made for
exaggeration on the part of the monkish writers, we cannot deny that
many instances of profligacy and worldly-mindedness did very probably
disgrace the clerical profession. It would be strange indeed if what has
taken place in every other age and country should have been unexampled
only among the Anglosaxons of the ninth and tenth centuries, or that
their monks and clergy should have enjoyed a monopoly of purity,
holiness and devotion to duty[957].
Footnote 955:
Mr. Soames (Anglosax. Church, p. 179, third edit.) says that Dúnstán’s
monastery at Glastonbury was the first establishment of the kind ever
known in England, and Dúnstán the first of English Benedictine abbots.
Nothing can possibly be more inexact than this assertion. Biscop’s
foundation at Wearmouth was a Benedictine one. In an address to his
monks, he himself is represented to say:—“Ideo multum cavetote,
fratres, semper, ne secundum genus unquam, ne deforis aliunde vobis
Patrem quaeratis; sed iuxta quod Regula magni quondam abbatis
Benedicti, iuxta quod privilegii nostri continent decreta, in conventa
vestrae congregationis communi consilio perquiratis, qui secundum
vitae meritum et sapientiae doctrinam aptior ad tale ministerium
perficiendum digniorque probetur; et quemcunque omnes unanimae
charitatis inquisitione optimum cognoscentes eligeretis, hunc vobis,
accito episcopo, rogetis abbatem consueta benedictione formari.” Beda,
Vit. Bened. § 12. (Opera Minora, ii. 151.) The same author tells us of
abbot Céolfrið:—“Multa diu secum mente versans, utilius decrevit, dato
Fratribus praecepto, ut iuxta sui statuta privilegii, iuxtaque Regulam
sancti abbatis Benedicti, de suis sibi ipsi Patrem, qui aptior esset,
eligerent, etc.” Vit. Bened. § 16. (Op. Min. ii. 156.) The author of
the anonymous life of St. Cúðberht, which is earlier than that of
Beda, says of Cúðberht at Lindisfarne:—“Vivens ibi quoque secundum
sanctam Scripturam, contemplativam vitam in actuali agens, et nobis
regularem vitam primus componens constituit, quam usque hodie cum
Regula Benedicti observamus.” Anon. Cúðb. § 25. (Bed. Op. Min. ii.
271.) At a still later period, viz. the close of the seventh century,
we learn that the monastery of Hnutscilling or Nursling in Hampshire
was a Benedictine one, and St. Boniface a Benedictine monk. His
contemporary biographer Willibald says:—“Maxime suo sub regulari
videlicet disciplina abbati, monachica subditus obedientia praebebat,
ut labore manuum cottidiano et disciplinali officiorum amministratione
incessanter secundum praefinitam beati Patris Benedicti rectae
constitutionis formam insisteret,” etc. Vit. Bonif. Pertz, ii. 336.
One can hardly imagine how Mr. Soames should suffer himself to be
misled by the exaggerations of Dúnstán’s monkish biographers: they are
of a piece with their whole story. That the rule had become very much
relaxed even in the Benedictine abbeys of this country is not to be
doubted: the same thing took place on the continent. Many had perished
in the Danish invasions; many had passed insensibly into the hands of
secular canons: and it is not at all improbable that in the middle of
the tenth century there was not a genuine Benedictine society left in
England. But this will certainly not justify the assertions of
Bridferð or Adelard, that Dúnstán was the first of English Benedictine
monks or abbots. “Et hoc praedicto modo saluberrimam sancti Benedicti
sequens institutionem, primus abbas Anglicae nationis enituit,”
(Bridferð. MS. Cott. Cleop. B. xii. fol. 72.)—“Monachorum ibi scholam
primo primus instituere coepit,”—(Adel. in Angl. Sacra, ii. 101
_note_) are at the least grave mistakes: one desires to believe that
they are not something worse; but they warn us to be extremely
cautious how we admit the authority of their writers as to any facts
they may please to record.
Footnote 956:
On this point Beda speaks most explicitly: “Sunt loca innumera, ut
novimus omnes, in monasteriorum ascripto vocabulum, sed nihil prorsus
monasticae conversationis habentia.” Ep. Ecgb. § 10. “Quod enim turpe
est dicere, tot sub nomine monasteriorum loca hi, qui monachicae vitae
prorsus sunt expertes, in suam ditionem acceperunt, sicut ipse melius
nosti,” etc. Ibid. § 11. “At alii graviore adhuc flagitio, quum sint
ipsi laici et nullius vitae regularis vel usu exerciti, vel amore
praediti, data regibus pecunia, emunt sibi sub praetextu monasteriorum
construendorum territoria, in quibus suae liberius vacent libidini, et
haec insuper in ius sibi haereditarium edictis regalibus faciunt
ascribi, ipsas quoque litteras privilegiorum suorum, quasi veraciter
Deo dignas, pontificum, abbatum et potestatum seculi, obtinent
subscriptione confirmari. Sicque usurpatis sibi agellulis sive vicis,
liberi exinde a divino simul et humano servitio, suis tantum inibi
desideriis laici monachis imperantes deserviunt; immo non monachos ibi
congregant, sed quoscunque ob culpam inobedientiae veris expulsos
monasteriis alicubi forte oberrantes invenerint, aut evocare
monasteriis ipsi valuerint; vel certe quos ipsi de suis satellitibus
ad suscipiendam tonsuram, promissa sibi obedientia monachica, invitare
quiverint. Horum distortis cohortibus suas, quas instruxere, cellas
implent, multumque informi atque inaudito spectaculo, idem ipsi viri
modo coniugis ac liberorum procreandorum curam gerunt, modo
exsurgentes do cubilibus, quid intra septa onasteriorum geri debeat
sedula intentione pertractant.... Sic per annos circiter triginta, hoc
est ex quo Aldfrid rex humanis rebus ablatus est, provincia nostra
vesano illo errore dementata est, ut nullus pene exinde praefectorum
extiterit, qui non huiusmodi sibi monasterium in diebus suae
praefecturae comparaverit, suamque simul coniugem pari reatu nocivi
mercatus astrinxerit; ac praevalente pessima consuetudine, ministri
quoque regis ac famuli idem facere sategerint. Atque ita ordine
perverso innumeri sunt inventi, qui se abbates pariter et praefectos,
sive ministros, aut famulos regis appellant; qui, etsi aliquid vitae
monasterialis ediscere laici, non experiendo sed audiendo, potuerint,
a persona tamen illa ac professione, quae hanc docere debeat, sunt
funditus exsortes; et quidem tales repente, ut nosti, tonsuram pro suo
libitu accipiunt, suo examine de laicis non monachi sed abbates
efficiuntur.” Ibid. § 12, 13. (Bed. Op. Min. ii. 216, 218 _seq._) On
these and other grounds Beda earnestly impresses upon Ecgberht the
duty of founding the twelve bishoprics contemplated by Gregory in the
province of York, in order to multiply the means of ecclesiastical
supervision. But if this was the condition of the Northumbrian
monasteries in the year 734, the period of Northumbria’s greatest
literary eminence, what may we conclude to have been the condition of
similar establishments in less instructed parts of England, especially
after a century of cruel wars had relaxed all the bonds of civilized
society? We may not greatly admire monachism, or believe it useful to
a state; but we can hardly blame those, who, finding the institution
in existence, desire to make the men who are attached to it worthy and
not unworthy members of their profession.
Footnote 957:
In the often-cited letter to Ecgberht, Beda gives but a bad character
to some among the prelates of his time. He says: “Quod non ita loquor,
quasi te aliter facere sciam, sed quia de quibusdam episcopis fama
vulgatum est, quod ipsi ita Christo serviant, ut nullos secum alicuius
religionis aut continentiae viros habeant; sed potius illos qui risui,
iocis, fabulis, commessationibus, et ebrietatibus, caeterisque vitae
remissioris illecebris subigantur, et qui magis quotidie ventrem
dapibus quam mentem sacrificiis coelestibus pascant.” § 4 (Op Min. ii.
209, 210).
-----
As we have seen already, it was only towards the end of the eighth
century that Chrodogang introduced a cœnobitical mode of life in the
cathedral of his archdiocese. Long before this time the great majority
of our churches had been founded; and among them some may possibly from
the first have been served by clergymen resident in their own detached
houses, and who merely met at stated hours to perform their duties in
the choir, living at other times apart upon their præbenda or allowances
from the general fund. But some of the cathedrals had been founded in
connexion with abbeys; and it is probable that a majority of these great
establishments were provided with some Rule of life, and demanded a
cœnobitical though not strictly monastic habit. This is too
frequently alluded to by the prelates of the seventh century, not to be
admitted. But whatever may have been the details in different
establishments, we may be certain that residence, temperance, soberness,
chastity, and a strict attendance upon the divine services were required
by the Rule of every society. Unfortunately these are restrictions and
duties which experience proves to have been sometimes neglected; nor can
we find any great improbability in the assertion of the Saxon Chronicle,
that the canons of Winchester would hold no rule at all[958]; or in the
accusations brought against them in the Annals of Winchester[959], and
in Wulfstán’s Life of Æðelwold[960], of violating every one of their
obligations. I do not see any reason to doubt the justice of the charge
made against some of their body by the last-named author, of having
deserted the wives they had taken, and living in open and scandalous
disregard of morality as well as canonical restraint. Wulfstán very
likely made the most of his facts, but it is to be remembered that he
was an eye-witness; and it is improbable that he should have been
indebted exclusively to his invention for charges so boldly made, so
capable of being readily brought to the test, and containing in truth
nothing repugnant to our experience of human nature. The canons of
Winchester, many of whom were highly connected, wealthy beyond those of
most other foundations, and established in the immediate vicinity of the
royal court, may possibly have been more than ordinarily neglectful of
their duties[961]; and they do appear in fact to have been treated in a
much more summary way than the prebendaries of other cathedrals; yet
perhaps not with strict justice, unless it can be shown that Winchester
was ever a monastic establishment, which, previous to Æðelwold, I do not
remember it to have been. Lingard who would have gratefully accepted any
evidence against the canons in the other cathedrals, confines himself to
Winchester; yet it strikes one as some confirmation of the general
charge, even against their brethren at Worcester, that among the
signatures to their charters so few are those of deacons and presbyters,
till long after Oswald’s appointment to the see. This, although the
silence of their adversaries allows us to acquit them of the
irregularities laid to the charge of the canons at Winchester, may lead
us to infer that they were not scrupulously diligent in fulfilling the
duties of their calling.
-----
Footnote 958:
“Dráf út ða clerca of ða biscopríce, forðan ðæt hí noldon nán Regul
healdan.” Chron. Sax. an. 963.
Footnote 959:
“Clerici illi, nominetenus Canonici, frequentationem chori, labores
vigiliarum, et ministerium altaris vicariis suis utcumque sustentatis
relinquentes, et ab aecclesiae conspectu plerumque absentes septennio,
quidquid de praebendis percipiebant, locis et modis sibi placitis
absumebant. Nuda fuit aecclesia intus et extra.” An. Wint. p. 289.
Footnote 960:
“Erant Canonici nefandis scelerum moribus implicati, elatione et
insolentia, atque luxuria praeventi, adeo ut nonnulli eorum
dedignarentur missas suo ordine celebrare, repudiantes uxores quas
illicite duxerant, et alias accipientes, gulae et ebrietati iugiter
dediti.” Vit. Æðelw. p. 614.
Footnote 961:
The description of a secular clerk given by the anonymous author of
the Gesta Abbatum Fontanellensium, written in the ninth century, was
probably not exaggerated. He says of Wido, a relative of Charles
Martel, “Erat de saecularibus clericis, gladioque quem semispatium
vocant semper accinctus, sagoque pro cappa utebatur, parumque
aecclesiasticae disciplinae imperiis parebat. Nam copiam canum
multiplicem semper habebat, cum qua venationi quotidie insistebat,
sagittatorque praecipuus in arcubus ligneis ad aves feriendas erat,
hisque operibus magis quam aecclesiasticae disciplinae studiis se
exercebat.” It does not surprise us to learn that this prelate was
also “ignarus litterarum.” Pertz, i. 284, 285.
-----
We cannot feel the least surprise that Dúnstán desired to reform the
state of the church. The peculiar circumstances of his early years, even
the severe mental struggles which preceded and explain his adoption of
the monastic career, were eminently calculated to train him for a
_Reviver_; and Revival was the fashion of his day. Arnold earl of
Flanders[962] had lent himself with the utmost zeal to the reform of the
Benedictine abbeys in his territory, and they were the models selected
for imitation, or as schools of instruction, by other lands, especially
England so closely connected with Flanders by commerce and the alliances
of the reigning houses[963]. Yet with it all, Dúnstán does not appear to
have taken a very prominent part in the proceedings of the friends of
monachism,—certainly not the prominent part taken by Oswald or Æðelwold,
the last of whom merited the title of the “Father of Monks,” by the
attention he paid to their interests. In the archbishop’s own cathedral
at Canterbury, the canons were left in undisturbed possession of their
property and dignity, nor were monks introduced there by archbishop
Ælfríc till some years after Dúnstán’s death. And even this measure,
although supported by papal authority[964], was not final: it was only
in the time of Lanfranc that the monks obtained secure possession of
Christchurch. Dúnstán very probably continued throughout his life to be
a favourer of the Order, and merited its gratitude by giving it valuable
countenance and substantial protection against violence. But he was
assuredly not himself a violent disturber, casting all things divine and
human into confusion for the sake of a system of monkery. His recorded
conduct shows nothing of the kind. I believe his monkish and very
vulgar-minded panegyrists to have done his character and memory great
wrong in this respect; and that they have measured the distinguished
statesman by the narrow gauge of their own intelligence and desire.
Troublous no doubt were his commencements; and in the days of his
misery, while his mind yet tossed and struggled among the awful abysses
of an unfathomed sea in the fierce conflicts of his ascetic retirement,
where the broken heart sought rest and found it not, he may have given
credence himself to what he considered supernatural visitations
vouchsafed, and powers committed, to him. But when time had somewhat
healed his wounds, when the first difficulties of his political life
were surmounted, and he ruled England,—nominally as the minister of
Eádgár, really as the leader of a very powerful party among the
aristocracy,—there can be little doubt that the spirit of compromise,
which always has been the secret of our public life, produced its
necessary effect upon himself. Dúnstán was neither Richelieu nor
Mazarin, but the servant of a king who wielded very limited powers; he
had first attained his throne through a revolt, the pretext for which
was his brother’s bad government, and its justification,—the consequent
right of the people to depose him. Whatever may have been the
archbishop’s private leaning, he appears to have conducted himself with
great discretion, and to have very skilfully maintained the peace
between the two embittered factions; he perhaps encouraged Eádgár to
manifest his partiality for monachism by the construction or reform of
abbeys; he probably supported Oswald and Æðelwold by his advice, and by
preventing them from being illegally interfered with in the course of
their lawful actions; but as prime minister of England, he maintained
the peace as well for one as for the other, and there is no evidence
that any measure of violence or spoliation took place by his connivance
or consent. Neither the nation, nor the noble families whose scions
found a comfortable provision and sufficient support in the prebends,
would have looked calmly upon the unprovoked destruction of rights
sanctioned by prescription. But there is indeed no reason to believe
that violent measures were resorted to in any of the establishments, to
bring about the changes desired. Even in Winchester, where more
compulsion seems to have been used than anywhere else, the evicted
canons were provided with pensions. I strongly suspect that in fact they
did retain during their lives the prebends which could not legally be
taken from them, though they might be expelled from the cathedral
service and the collegiate buildings; and that this is what the monkish
writers veil under the report that pensions were assigned them.
-----
Footnote 962:
Arnold died in 904, but his reforms began twenty years earlier.
However, between the years 912 and 942, Berno, and his still more
celebrated successor Odo, abbots of Cluny, had introduced a reform of
the Benedictine rule in a great number of monasteries. Flodoardus
calls Odo: “Dominus Odo, venerabilis abbas, multorum restaurator
monasteriorum, sanctaeque Regulae reparator.” See Pagi. Baron, ad an.
942. This example was not lost upon Dúnstán.
Footnote 963:
“Baudouin le chauve, II^e comte de Flandre, s’empara, en 900, des deux
abbayes de St. Vaast et St. Bertin.... Dès l’année 944,
Arnould-le-vieux, rentré en possession de St. Vaast, entreprit la
réforme de ces abbayes, par les soins de St. Gérard de Brognes, qu’il
nomma abbé de St. Bertin. Il le chargea ensuite (probablement vers
950) de celle des abbayes de St. Pierre et de St. Bavon à Gand, qu’il
avait également sous son pouvoir: Womare en fut nommé abbé. Ces
reformes, sans doute d’après la règle de Cluny, créé en 910 [read 912
not 910], s’étendirent d’après la chronique de St. Bertin (Thes.
Anecd. iii. 552, 553), à dix-huit abbayes de l’ordre de Saint Benoit
(Chron. de Jean de Thielrode, édit. de M. Vanlokeren, p. 127). Les
moines qui refusèrent de s’y soumettre, furent expulsés de leurs
monastères: quelques-uns émigrèrent en Angleterre ou ailleurs.”
Warnkönig, Hist. Fland. ii. 338 _seq._ In 956 Dúnstán flying from
England, found hospitality and rest in one of these reformed houses,
that of Blandinium or St. Peter, at Ghent.
Footnote 964:
Chron. Sax. an. 995. Probably it never had been monastic from the very
time of Augustine: and the setting up a claim on the part of the
monks, derived from Augustine himself, was totally inadmissible.
-----
Dr. Lingard has very justly observed that Oswald, with all his zeal,
made no change whatever in his cathedral of York, which archdiocese he
at one time held together with Worcester; and that, generally speaking,
the new monasteries were either reared upon perfectly new ground, or on
ancient foundations then entirely reduced to ruins[965]. With regard to
Worcester, he says:—“Of Oswald we are told that he introduced monks in
the place of clergymen into seven churches within his bishopric; but
there is reason to believe that some of the seven were new foundations,
and that in some of the others the change was effected with the full
consent of the canons themselves. In his cathedral he succeeded by the
following artifice. Having erected in its vicinity a new church to the
honour of the Virgin Mary, he entrusted it to the care of a community of
monks, and frequented it himself for the solemn celebration of mass. The
presence of the bishop attracted that of the people; the ancient clergy
saw their church gradually abandoned; and after some delay, Wensine,
their dean, a man advanced in years and of unblemished character, took
the monastic habit, and was advanced three years later to the office of
prior. The influence of his example and the honour of his promotion,
held out a strong temptation to his brethren; till at last the number of
canons was so diminished by repeated desertions, that the most wealthy
of the churches of Mercia became without dispute or violence, by the
very act of its old possessors, a monastery of Benedictine monks[966].
In what manner Oswald proceeded with the other churches we are ignorant;
but in 971 he became archbishop of York, and though he held that high
dignity during twenty years, we do not read that he introduced a single
colony of monks or changed the constitution of a single clerical
establishment, within the diocese. The reason is unknown.”
-----
Footnote 965:
Hist. and Ant. Ang. Church, ii. 290, 294. This was certainly the case
with several of Æðelwold’s monasteries; and I regret to think that
many of the Saxon charters which pretend to the greatest antiquity
were forged on occasion of this revival, to enlarge the basis of the
restored foundations.
Footnote 966:
Eadmer, Vit. Oswald, p. 202. Ang. Sac. i. 542. Hist. Rames. p. 400.
-----
It might not unfairly be suggested either that the rights of the canons
were too well established to be shaken, or that experience had changed
his own mind as to the necessity of the alteration. High station, active
engagement with the details of business, increasing age, and a natural
mutual respect which grows with better acquaintance, may have convinced
Oswald that his youthful zeal had a little outrun discretion, and that
the canons in his province and diocese were not so utterly devoid of
claims to consideration as he once had imagined in his reforming
fervour. But the reader of Anglosaxon history will not fail to have
observed that the measured and in general fair tone of Dr. Lingard
differs very widely from that of early monkish chroniclers, and that he
himself attributes to Oswald a much less active interference than is
asserted by many protestant historians. That he is right I do not for a
moment doubt; for not only are the accounts of Oswald’s biographers
inconsistent with one another, and improbable, but we have very strong
evidence that the eviction of the canons from Worcester was not
completed in Oswald’s lifetime. We possess no fewer than seventy-eight
charters granted by his chapter, and these comprise several signed in
990 and 991, the years immediately preceding that in which he died[967]:
these charters are signed in part by presbyters and deacons, in part by
clerics, and there is but one signature of a monk[968], though there are
at least six _clerici_ who subscribe. Although from an examination of
the charters I entertain no doubt that several, if not all, the
presbyters and deacons were monks, still it is clear that a number of
the canons still retained their influence over the property of the
chapter till within a few months of Oswald’s decease. This prelate came
to his see in 960, and according to many accounts immediately replaced
the canons of Worcester by monks: all agree that he lost no time about
it, and Florence[969], himself a monk of that place, fixes his triumph
in the year 969. Consistently with this we have a grant of that
year[970], in which Wynsige the monk, and all the monks at Worcester are
named: we have a similar statement[971] in another document of 974: and
in subsequent charters monks are named. A good example occurs in a grant
of the year 977, to which are appended the names of eight monks[972]:
but coupled with these are also the names of sixteen clerics, exclusive
of a presbyter and deacon of old standing, whom the chapter had probably
caused to be ordained long before, to do the service for them. All at
once the addition _monachus_ to seven of these eight names vanishes, and
is replaced by _presbyter_ or _diaconus_. Henceforth the number of
_clerici_ gradually diminishes, but, as we have seen, is not entirely
gone in 991, the year before Oswald’s death. I do not believe that the
bishop had any power to expel the canons, and that he was compelled to
let them remain where they were until they died: but he perhaps could
prevent any but monks from being received in their places, and it is to
be presumed that he could refuse to admit any but monks to priests’ and
deacons’ orders. This, we may gather from the charters, was the plan he
pursued; and when we consider the dignity and power possessed by the
Anglosaxon priesthood, we shall confess that it was one which threw
every advantage into the scale of monachism.
-----
Footnote 967:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 674-678.
Footnote 968:
In Nos. 675, 678. In the other charters where this Leófwine occurs, he
is even called _clericus_, unless it were another person of the same
name.
Footnote 969:
An. 969. “S. Oswaldus, sui voti compos effectus, clericos Wigorniensis
aecclesiae monachilem habitum suscipere renuentes de monasterio
expulit; consentientes vero, hoc anno, ipso teste monachizavit, cisque
Ramesiensium coenobitam Wynsinum, magnae religionis virum, loco decani
praefecit.”
Footnote 970:
Cod. Dipl. No. 553.
Footnote 971:
Ibid. No. 586.
Footnote 972:
Ibid. No. 615.
-----
Had we similar means of enquiry, it is very probable that we should come
to the same conclusion with regard to other establishments from which
the canons are said to have been forcibly driven. However enough seems
to have been said, to prove that we must be very careful how we trust to
the random assertions of partizans either on one side or the other. Let
us be ready to condemn ecclesiastical tyranny and arrogance, wherever it
is proved to have disgraced the clerical profession; but let us not
forget that it is our duty to judge charitably. In the case which we
have now considered, I think we shall be disposed to acquit some men,
whose names fill a conspicuous place in Saxon history, of the violence
and folly which their own over-zealous partizans have laid to their
charge, and which have been used in modern times to embitter the
separation unfortunately existing between two great bodies of
Christians.
CHAPTER X.
THE INCOME OF THE CLERGY.
The means provided for the support of the clergy were various at various
periods, consisting sometimes merely of voluntary donations on the part
of the people, sometimes of grants of lands, or settled endowments, and
sometimes of fixed charges upon persons and property, recognized by the
state and levied under its authority: and after the secure establishment
of a Christian church in Britain, it is probable that all these several
sources of income were combined to supply its ministers with a decent
maintenance, if not even an easy competence. The grant of lands whereon
to erect a church or a monastery was generally calculated also to
furnish arable and pasture for the support of its inmates: for the
earliest clergy were in fact cœnobites, and lived in common, even if
they were not monks, and subject to the Benedictine or some other Rule.
It is not at all probable that the heathen priesthood should have been
without an adequate provision, whether in land or the free oblations of
the people, and very likely that their Christian successors profited by
the custom. As the piety or superstition of the masses increased the
landed possessions of the clergy, these not only could depend upon the
produce of their estates, but upon the rents in kind, in money or in
service, which they received from tenants or poor dependents. And from
early periods, either custom or positive law had established a right to
claim certain contributions at fixed periods of the year, or on
particular occasions; such were tithes of fruits of the earth, and young
of cattle; cyricsceat or first-fruits of seed, light-money, plough-alms,
and sáwlsceat or mortuary fees. The numberless grants of lands recorded
in the Codex Diplomaticus in favour of the clergy, dispense with the
necessity of entering at any length upon this head; but some more
detailed examination of the other church-dues is desirable, inasmuch as
they have been in some degree misunderstood by several writers who have
heretofore treated of them. In truth, it was comparatively difficult to
deal with these subjects, till the publication of all the Anglosaxon
laws and a very large body of the charters so greatly increased the
number of data upon which alone sound conclusions could be formed.
The subject of tithe is surrounded with difficulty, not only from the
obscurity which belongs to its history, but still more from the nature
of the discussions to which it has given rise. That from periods so
early as to transcend historical record the clergy should have been
permitted universally to claim a tenth of all increase, does indeed seem
so startling a proposition, that we are little surprised at its having
met with angry opposition. It does not seem consonant to the general
experience of man that in all nations precisely the same mode should be
adopted of supporting any class of men; nor is it natural or easy to
believe that a missionary body, in constant danger of finding all their
efforts vain, should prevail at once to establish so serious a claim
against the income of their converts.
Still there are various circumstances which tend to explain this process
and show how a general consent upon this subject did gradually prevail.
From the first moment when the clergy appear as a separate class from
the whole body of the faithful, they appear as a body formed upon the
plan and guided by the maxims of the Jewish hierarchy. While the church
was literally performing the command of the Saviour,—when those who had
anything, sold all they had and gave it to the poor, through the hands
of the Apostles,—there was no particular necessity to define very
closely the functions or the remuneration of the ministers; these gave
their services as others did their wealth, as an acceptable sacrifice to
the Giver of all good things. But when the number of the congregations
increased, when compromises were made, and more complicated duties were
imposed upon the ministers of the church, it was only reasonable that
some arrangement should be made for their support, and some rule imposed
for their direction. It was not too much to require that they should
devote their whole time and talents to the service of the congregation,
and that these in turn should relieve them from the necessity of daily
labour for subsistence. When the duty of teaching, as well as visiting
the sick, distributing the alms of the faithful, and providing for the
due celebration of the religious rites, principally devolved upon them,
it would have been as impolitic as unjust to have condemned them to
uncertainty or anxiety as to their daily bread. At a very early period
the voluntary oblations of the faithful were duly apportioned, and a
part devoted to the support of the clergy. But no one, I imagine, will
consider this to be a perfectly satisfactory mode of providing for the
ministers of the church: its inconveniences are daily manifested in our
own time, and would now probably not be submitted to at all, had
opposition not lent a dignity to the principle, and did the case present
any but the actual alternative. It nevertheless seems that for nearly
four hundred years this was the only mode of providing not only for the
maintenance of the clergy, but for the acts of charity which the
Christian congregations considered their especial duty[973]; although
perhaps here and there the wealthier or more pious communicants might
have charged their estates with settled payments at fixed times; or the
liberality of individuals might have presented estates to the church of
particular districts; or some imperfect system of funding might have
been adopted by the managers to equalise the otherwise irregular income
of various years.
-----
Footnote 973:
“Till toward the end of the first four hundred [years] no payment of
them [_i. e._ tithes] can be proved to have been in use. Some
_opinion_ is of their being due, and _constitutions_ also, but such as
are of no credit. For the first, ’tis best declared by showing the
course of the church-maintenance in that time. So liberal in the
beginning of Christianity was the devotion of the believers, that
their bounty to the evangelical priesthood far exceeded what the tenth
could have been. For if you look to the first of the Apostles’ times,
then the unity of heart among them about Jerusalem, was such that all
was in common and none wanted, ‘and as many as were possessors of
lands or houses, sold them and brought the price of the things that
were sold, and laid it down at the Apostles’ feet, and it was
distributed unto every man, according as he had need[a].’And the whole
church, both lay and clergy, then lived in common as the monks did
afterward about the end of the first four hundred years as St.
Chrysostome notes[b] οὕτως, says he, οἱ ἐν τοῖς μοναστηρίοις ζῶσι νῦν
ὥσπερ τότε οἱ πιστοὶ, that is, ‘So they live now in monasteries as
then the believers lived.’ But this kind of having all things in
common scarce at all continued. For we see not long after in the
church of Antiochia (where Christianity was first of all by that name
professed) every one of the disciples had a special ability or estate
of his own[c]. So in Galatia and in Corinth where St. Paul ordained
that weekly offerings for the Saints should be given by every man as
he had thrived in his estate[d]. By example of these, the course of
monthly offerings succeeded in the next ages. These monthly offerings
given by devout and able Christians, the bishops or officers appointed
in the church received[e]; and carefully and charitably disposed them
on Christian worship, the maintenance of the clergy, feeding,
clothing, and burying their poor brethren, widows, orphans, persons
tyrannically condemned to the mines, to prison, or punished by
deportation into isles. They were called _Stipes_ (which is a word
borrowed from the use of the heathens in their collections made for
their temples and deities), neither were they exacted by canon or
otherwise, but arbitrarily given; as by testimony of most learned
Tertullian[f], that lived about CC years after Christ, is apparent:
‘Neque pretio (are his words) ulla res Dei constat. Etiam si quod
arcae genus est, non de oneraria summa quasi redemptae religionis
congregatur, modicam unusquisque Stipem, menstruâ die, vel cum velit,
et si modo velit, et si modo possit, apponit. Nam nemo compellitur,
sed sponte confert. Haec quasi deposita pietatis sunt.’ And then he
shewes the employment of them in those charitable uses. Some authority
is[g], that about this time lands began also to be given to the
church. If they were so, out of the profits of them, and this kind of
offerings, was made a treasure; and out of that, which was increased
so monthly, was a monthly pay given to the priests and ministers of
the Gospel (as a salarie for their service), and that either by the
hand or care of the bishop, or of some elders appointed as Oeconomi or
Wardens. These monthly pays they called Mensurnae divisiones, as you
may see in St. Cyprian[h], who wrote, being bishop of Carthage, about
the year CCL, and, speaking familiarly of this use, calls the brethren
that cast in their monthly offerings, _fratres sportulantes_,
understanding the offerings under the word Sportulae, which at first
in Rome denoted a kind of running banquets distributed at great men’s
houses to such as visited for salutation, which being ofttimes also
given in money, the word came at length to signify both those
salaries, wages or fees which either judges[i] or ministers of courts
of justice received as due to their places, as also to denote the
oblations given to make a treasure for the salaries and maintenance of
the ministers of the church in this primitive age, and to this purpose
was it also used in later times[j]. But because that passage of St.
Cyprian, where he uses this phrase, well shows also the course of the
maintenance of the church in his time, take it here transcribed: but
first know the drift of his Epistle to be a reprehension of Geminius
Faustinus a priest his being troubled with the care of a wardship,
whereas such as take that dignity upon them, should, he says, be free
from all secular troubles like the Levites, who were provided for in
tithes. ‘Ut qui (as he writes[k]) operationibus divinis insistebant,
in nulla re avocarentur, nec cogitare aut agere saecularia
cogerentur.’ And then he adds: ‘Quae nunc ratio et forma in Clero
tenetur, ut qui in ecclesia Domini ad ordinationem clericalem
promoventur, nullo modo ab administratione divina avocentur, sed in
honore sportulantium fratrum, tanquam Decimas ex fructibus
accipientes, ab Altari et Sacrificiis non recedant, et die ac nocte
coelestibus rebus et spiritualibus serviant;’ which plainly agrees
with that course of monthly pay, made out of the oblations brought
into the Treasury; which kind of means he compares to that of the
Levites, as being proportionable. But hence also ’tis manifest, that
no payment of tithes was in St. Cyprian’s time in use, although some,
too rashly, from this very place would infer so much, those words
_tanquam Decimas accipientes_ (which continues the comparing of
ministers of the Gospel with the Levites) plainly exclude them. And
elsewhere also the same Father, finding fault with a coldness of
devotion that then possest many, in regard of what was in use in the
Apostles’ times, and seeing that the Oblations given were less than
usually before, expresses[l] their neglect to the church with, ‘ac
nunc de patrimonio nec Decimas damus:’ whence, as you may gather, that
no usual payment was of them, so withall observe in his expression,
that the liberality formerly used had been such, that, in respect
thereof, Tenths were but a small part: understand it as if he had
said, ‘but now we give not so much as any part worth speaking of.’
Neither for aught appears in old monuments of credit, till near the
end of this first four hundred years, was any payment to the Church of
any tenth part, as a Tenth, at all in use.” Selden on Tithes, cap. iv.
p. 35 _seq._.
Footnote a:
Acts iv. 34.
Footnote b:
Hom. 11. in Acta.
Footnote c:
Acts xi. 29.
Footnote d:
1 Cor. xvi. 2. Ockam, in Oper. xc dierum, cap. 107.
Footnote e:
Synod. Gangr. can. lxvi.
Footnote f:
Apologetic. cap. 39, 42.
Footnote g:
Urban, i. in Epist. c. 12, q. 1, c. 16, i. Sed et vide Euseb. Eccles.
Hist. lib. 9. cap. 9. Edict. Maximin. et lib. 10. cap. 5. Edict.
Constant. et in lib. 2. de vita Constantini, cap. 39.
Footnote h:
Cyprian, Epist. 27, 34: et vide Epist. 36, editione Pammeliana.
Footnote i:
Papinian. de Decurion. L 6. § 1. et C. _tit._ de Sportulis. Et vid.
Glossar. Græc. iuris in Σπορτουλα.
Footnote j:
Concil. Chalced. A.D. 451. in libell. Samuelis et al. contra Iban. et
videsis tom. 3. Concil. fol. 231. cap. 31. Edit. Binii penultima.
Footnote k:
Epist. 266. ed. Pammel.
Footnote l:
De Unitate Ecclesiae, § 23.
-----
The growing habit of looking upon the clergy as the successors and
representatives of the Levites under the Old Law, may very likely have
given the impulse to that claim which they set up to the payment of
tithes by the laity. But it is also probable that in course of time
tithes had actually been given to them among other oblations, and had so
helped to strengthen the application of the Levitical Law by an apparent
legal prescription. There is not the least reason to doubt that payments
of a tenth had been in very common use before the introduction of
Christianity, and among people who have a decimal system of notation, a
tenth is not an unlikely portion to be claimed as a royalty, a
recognitory service, or a rent. The emperors had royalties of a tenth in
mines: the landlords very frequently reserved a tenth in lands which
they put out on usufructuary tenure. These rents and royalties, like
other property, had been granted to the church. Again the piety of the
laity had occasionally remitted the tenths due upon the lands in the
holding of the clergy, which was in fact equivalent to a grant of the
tithe[974]. And lastly tithe being paid on some estates to the clergy as
landlords, there was a useful analogy, and colourable claim of right:
and thus sufficient authority was found in custom itself to corroborate
pretensions set up on grounds which could not be very satisfactorily or
safely demurred to, in the fourth and fifth centuries.
-----
Footnote 974:
One of the clearest examples that occur to me at present is from a
capitulary of the Merwingian Chlotachari in 560. “Agraria, pascuaria,
vel decimas porcorum, aecclesiae, pro fidei nostrae devotione,
concedimus, ita ut actor aut decimator in rebus aecclesiae nullus
accedat: aecclesiae vel clericis nullam requirant agentes publici
functionem qui avi vel genitoris aut germani nostri immunitatem
meruerunt.” Pertz, iii. 3. This is clearly a remission of tithe due to
the king from lands held by the clergy, and bears some resemblance to
Æðelwulf’s celebrated release.
-----
But there is not the slightest proof that tithe of increase was demanded
as of right even in the fifth century, in all the churches; although a
growing tendency in that direction may be detected in the African and
the Western establishments. Nor does any general council exist
containing any regulation on the subject[975], till far later periods.
But in 567 the clergy at the synod of Tours for the first time
positively called upon the faithful to pay tithes[976], and eighteen
years later at the Council of Macon, the command was enforced, as a
return to a just and goodly custom which had fallen into desuetude, but
which had the sanction of “the divine law, specially taking care of the
interests of priests and ministers of churches.” The daringly false
assertions by which this usurpation was attempted to be justified are
recorded in the annexed note, if indeed the acts of this council are
genuine[977]: I have only to add that they were subscribed by forty-six
bishops, and the representatives of twenty more,—making a total of
sixty-six prelates, a number quite sufficient in the year 585 to gain
currency for any fabrication however impudent. The clergy however still
thundered in vain; nor was it till 779 that they succeeded in getting
legislative and state authority for their claim through the political
interests of the Frankish princes. The Capitulary of that year enacts
that every one shall give tithes, and that these shall be distributed by
the direction of the bishop[978].
-----
Footnote 975:
The earliest is the Council of Lateran, held by Calixtus II. in 1123.
The Council of Lateran, A.D. 1179, commanded that those who at the
peril of their souls retained property in tithes, should not, under
any pretence, transfer it to lay hands. But no general Council assumes
the payment of tithes to be due of common right to the parochial
Rector, before the Council of Lateran held by Innocent III. in 1215.
Footnote 976:
Epist. Episc. Prov. Turon. ad plebem Missa; Labbe. v. 868. Eichhorn,
§186. vol. i. 779 _seq._
Footnote 977:
Conc. Matiscon. 585. can. 5. “Omnes igitur reliquas fidei causas, quas
temporis longitudine cognovimus deterioratas fuisse, oportet nos ad
statum pristinum revocare, ne nobis simus adversarii, dum ea quae
cognoscimus ad nostri ordinis qualitatem pertinere, aut non
corrigimus, aut, quod nefas est, silentio praeterimus. Leges itaque
divinae, consulentes sacerdotibus ac ministris aecclesiarum, pro
haereditatis portione omni populo praeceperunt decimas fructuum suorum
locis sacris praestare, ut nullo labore impediti, horis legitimis
spiritualibus possent vacare ministeriis. Quas leges Christianorum
congeries longis temporibus custodivit intemeratas; nunc autem
paulatim praevaricatores legum poene Christiani omnes ostenduntur, dum
ea quae divinitus sancita sunt, adimplere negligunt. Unde statuimus et
decernimus, ut mos antiquus a fidelibus reparetur, et decimas
aecclesiasticis famulantibus caeremoniis populus omnis inferat, quas
sacerdotes aut in pauperum usum, aut in captivorum redemptionem
praerogantes, suis orationibus pacem populo et salutem impetrent. Si
quis autem contumax nostris statutis saluberrimis fuerit, a membris
aecclesiae omni tempore separetur.” It must be confessed that Selden
has thrown very great doubts upon the authenticity of this canon of
the Council of Macon, and that it is of very questionable authority.
See his History of Tithes, cap. 5. p. 65. It is hardly consistent with
what Agobard of Lyons, who shortly after was bishop of the see itself
in which Macon lies, declares: “Iam vero de donandis rebus et
ordinandis aecclesiis nihil unquam in Synodis constitutum est, nihil a
sanctis patribus publice praedicatum. Nulla enim compulit necessitas,
fervente ubique religiosa devotione, et amore illustrandi aecclesias
ultro aestuante,” etc. Agob. Lugdun. de Dispensatione, etc. p. 276.
(Ed. Masson. Parisiis.) But as Eichhorn, who has deeply investigated
this subject, appears to differ here from Selden, I have cited this
Council on his responsibility, and with the more readiness, that it
rather opposes than confirms my own opinion.
Footnote 978:
“De decimis, ut unusquisque decimam donet, atque per iussionem
pontificis dispensentur.” Capit. 779, cap. 7. Pertz, iii.
-----
Ten years after the council of Macon had thus boldly announced its views
with regard to tithe, Augustine set out for England.
The question as to the origin of tithes in England, as to its date, and
the authority on which the impost rested, has been much discussed, but
not altogether satisfactorily. Nevertheless when divested of the
extraneous difficulties with which polemical zeal, and selfish
class-interests have overwhelmed it, it does not seem incapable of a
reasonable solution. It is well known that the earliest legislative
enactment on the subject in the Anglosaxon laws is that of Æðelstán,
bearing date in the first quarter of the tenth century; and that nearly
every subsequent king recognized the right of the clergy to tithe, and
made regulations either for the levying or the distribution of it[979].
But although this is the case, I entertain no doubt whatever that the
payment of tithe was become very general in England at an earlier
period. It is recognised in the articles of the treaty of peace between
Eádweard the elder and Guðorm, in A.D. 900 or 901, in such a way as to
assume its being a well-known and established due to the Church[980],
even though no legislative enactment on the subject can be shown in the
Codes of Ælfred, Ini or the Kentish kings[981]. The well-known tradition
of Æðelwulf’s granting tithe, throughout at least his kingdom of Wessex,
carries it back still half a century. But even this falls short of the
antiquity which we must assume for the custom, if we believe in the
genuineness of the ancient Poenitentials and Confessionals. In the
eighth century Theodore determines, in a work especially intended for
the instruction of the clergy, “Tributum aecclesiae sit, sicut est
consuetudo provinciae, id est, ne tantum pauperes in decimis, aut in
aliquibus rebus vim patiantur. Decimas non est legitimum dare, nisi
pauperibus et peregrinis[982].”
-----
Footnote 979:
See Appendix to this volume.
Footnote 980:
“If any one withhold tithes, let him pay lahslít among the Danes, wíte
among the English.” Eád. Gúð. §6. Thorpe, i. 170.
Footnote 981:
Brompton says that Offa granted it, as far as Mercia was concerned, p.
772. Certainly, in general, Brompton’s authority is not very great;
but I think that in this case he has probability on his side, if we
restrict the grant to Offa’s demesne lands, or to a release of a tenth
of the dues payable to the king on Folcland. A general enactment,
comprising the whole kingdom, would scarcely have been omitted in any
subsequent collection of laws. The law of Offa is indeed lost, but
some of its provisions probably survive in the legislation of later
kings. See Ælfr. Proem. Thorpe, i. 58. The absence of all mention of
tithe by Ælfred is not conclusive: he takes just as little notice of
cyricsceat, leohtsceat, sáwlsceat, and other payments which were
unquestionably claimed by the church. Eádweard’s treaty with Gúðorm,
though it does not define the parties from whom tithe was demandable,
treats subtraction of it as an offence punishable at law.
Footnote 982:
Capitula et Fragm. Theod. Thorpe, ii. 65.
-----
The Excerptions of Archbishop Ecgberht[983] contain a prohibition
against subtracting tithes from churches of old foundation, on pretence
of giving them to new oratories. And further, the following exhortation
respecting this payment[984]: “In lege Domini scriptum est: ‘Decimas et
primitias non tardabis offerre.’ Et in Levitico: ‘Omnes decimae terrae,
sive de frugibus, sive de pomis arborum, Domini sunt; boves, et oves, et
caprae, quae sub pastoris virga transeunt, quicquid decimum venerit,
sanctificabitur Domino.’ Non eligetur nec bonum nec malum, nec alterum
commutabitur. Augustinus dicit: Decimae igitur tributae sunt
aecclesiarum et egentium animarum. O homo, inde Dominus decimas expetit,
unde vivis. De militia, de negotio, de artificio redde decimas; non enim
eget Dominus noster, non proemia postulat, sed honorem.” The same
ancient authority thus also impresses upon priests the duty of
collecting and distributing the tithe[985]:—“Ut unusquisque sacerdos
cunctos sibi pertinentes erudiat, ut sciant qualiter decimas totius
facultatis aecclesiis divinis debite offerant. Ut ipsi sacerdotes a
populis suscipiant decimas, et nomina eorum quicumque dederint scripta
habeant, et secundum auctoritatem canonicam coram [Deum] timentibus
dividant; et ad ornamentum aecclesiae primam eligant partem; secundam
autem, ad usum pauperum atque peregrinorum, per eorum manus
misericorditer cum omni humilitate dispensent; tertiam vero sibimetipsis
sacerdotes reservent[986].”
-----
Footnote 983:
Excerpt. Ecgberhti, No. 24. Thorpe, ii. 100.
Footnote 984:
Excerpt. Ecgberhti, Nos. 101, 102. Thorpe, ii. 111, 112.
Footnote 985:
Excerpt. Ecgberhti, Nos. 4, 5. Thorpe, ii. 98.
Footnote 986:
The custom of the Romish church, as is well known, divided every
oblation, or gain that accrued to the church from the contributions of
the faithful, into four parts,—one for the bishop, one for the poor,
one for the clergy, and one for the repairs of the fabric. Othlon, who
wrote the Life of St. Boniface in the twelfth century, thus appeals to
the universal custom of the church: “Quando quidem iuxta sanctorum
canonum decreta decimas in quatuor portiones dividentes, unam, sibi
[i. e. the bishops], alteram clericis, tertiam pauperibus, quartam
restaurandis aecclesiis tradiderunt? Numquid avaritiae suae tantummodo
consulentes, in distributione decimarum obliti sunt pauperum,
restaurationisque aecclesiarum, sicut modo, pro dolor! cernimus agi?
Canones enim sancti, ex quorum auctoritate exiguntur decimae, non
solum decimas dari, sed etiam inter varios aecclesiae usus distribui;
ut in urbibus quibuslibet et vicis Xenodochia habeantur, ubi pauperes
et peregrini alantur. Sed tam sanctum et tam necessarium praeceptum in
pluribus locis non solum minime curatur, sed etiam poene ignoratur.
Nam solummodo illud legitur, quod epicopis decimae sint tribuendae;
quid vero exinde agendum sit, vel si quidquam aliud curandum sit circa
monasteria, tam a clericis—miserabile dictu—quam a laicis destructa,
citraque iudicia religionis Christianae subversa, oblivioni seu
ignorantiae commendatur.” Pertz, ii. 358. In the commencement of the
seventh century, Gregory, in his rules for the government of the
newly-planted English church, directed Augustine to make not four but
three portions, inasmuch as he being a monk could have no separate
share of his own. He says: “Mos autem sedis apostolicae est ordinatis
episcopis praecepta tradere, ut in omni stipendio, quod accedit,
quatuor debeant fieri portiones: una videlicet episcopo et familiae
propter hospitalitatem atque susceptionem, alia clero, tertia
pauperibus, quarta aecclesiis reparandis. Sed quia tua fraternitas
monasterii regulis erudita, seorsum fieri non debet a clericis suis in
aecclesia Anglorum quae, auctore Deo, nuper adhuc ad fidem adducta
est, hanc debet conversationem instituere, quae initio nascentis
aecclesiae fuit patribus nostris; in quibus nullus eorum ex his, quae
possidebant, aliquid suum esse dicebat, sed erant eis omnia communia.”
Beda, H. E. i. 27. The original canon is in Gratian. Caus. 12. q. ii.
c. 30. Ed. Pithæi. fol. Paris, 1687, i. 240. Hence the directions of
the Anglosaxon prelates, and the regulation of Æðelred, as to a
threefold division.
-----
When we consider the growing tendency in the clergy to make payment of
tithe compulsory, the repeated exhortations of provincial synods to that
effect, and the universal ignorance of the people, we shall have little
difficulty in acknowledging that the English prelates laid a good
foundation for the custom of tithing, long before they succeeded in
obtaining any legal right from the State. In the course of three
centuries which preceded Eádweard’s reign they had ample time and
opportunity to threaten or cajole a simple-minded race into the belief
that they had a right to impose the levitical obligations upon them: in
the seventh century Boniface testifies to the payment of tithe in
England, nearly a century before the state enacted it in Germany: about
the same period Cædwealha of Wessex, though yet nominally a pagan,
tithed his spoils taken in war; and I have little doubt that at least
prædial tithe was almost universally levied long before the Witena gemót
made it a legal charge, though I cannot concur with Phillips in
believing that it was so decreed by Offa, or confirmed by Æðelwulf[987],
for the whole kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex.
-----
Footnote 987:
Angelsäch. Recht. p. 251. He appeals only to Brompton, whose authority
is by no means conclusive.
-----
We will now return to Æðelwulf’s so-called grant, in which many of our
lawyers and historians have been content to see the legal origin of
tithing in this country[988]; but which I must confess appears to me to
have nothing to do with tithing whatever, in the legal sense of the
word. The reports of the later chroniclers need not be taken into
account; we may confine ourselves to the early and trustworthy sources,
whose assertions we are quite as likely to make proper use of as the
compilers of the fourteenth century.
-----
Footnote 988:
This is Selden’s view, and Hume’s, and has been generally followed.
-----
Under date of the year 855, the Saxon Chronicle says. “This same year,
Æðelwulf booked the tenth part of his land throughout his realm, for
God’s glory and his own salvation.” Asser, who was no question well
acquainted with the traditions of Æðelwulf’s house, varies the
statement: “Eodem anno Æðhelwulfus praefatus venerabilis rex decimam
totius regni sui partem ab omni regali servitio et tributo liberavit, in
sempiternoque graphio in cruce Christi, pro redemptione animae suae et
antecessorum suorum, uni et trino Deo immolavit[989].” In this he is
followed verbatim by Florence of Worcester. Æðelweard, a direct
descendant of Æðelwulf, thus records the grant[990]: “In eodem anno
decumavit Æðulf rex de omni possessione sua in partem Domini, et in
universo regimine principatus sui sic constituit.”
-----
Footnote 989:
_In anno_ 855.
Footnote 990:
Chronic. lib. iii.
-----
Simeon has:—“Quo tempore rex Ethelwulfus rex decimavit totum regni sui
imperium, pro redemptione animae suae et antecessorum suorum.”
Huntingdon:—“Æðelwulfus decimo nono anno regni sui totam terram suam ad
opus aecclesiarum decumavit, propter amorem Dei et redemptionem sui.”
Roger of Wendover and Matthew Paris, upon the authority of Æðelwulf’s
charter of 854, say:—“Eodem anno rex magnificus Athelwulfus decimam
regni sui partem Deo et Beatae Mariae et omnibus sanctis contulit,
liberam ab omnibus servitiis saecularibus exactionibus et tributis.” And
again in 857, speaking of Æðelwulf’s will:—“Pro utilitate animae suae et
salute, per omne regnum suum semper in decem hidis vel mansionibus
pauperem unum indigenam, vel peregrinum cibo, potu et operimento,
successoribus suis usque in finem saeculi post se pascere praecepit, ita
tamen ut si terra illa pecoribus abundaret et ab hominibus coleretur.”
Malmesbury, who calls the charter of 854 “scriptum libertatis
aecclesiarum quod toti concessit Angliae,” thus describes its
effect:—“Ethelwulfus ... decimam omnium hidarum infra regnum suum
Christi famulis concessit, liberam ab omnibus functionibus, absolutam ab
omnibus inquietudinibus.” And in 857, with reference to Æðelwulfs
will:—“Semperque ad finem saeculi in omni suae haereditatis decima hida
pauperem vestiri et cibari praecepit.”
These passages obviously relate to two several transactions, one which
took place in the year 854, before Æðelwulf’s visit to Rome, the second
in the year 857, after his return to England: and the Codex Diplomaticus
contains a series of documents referring to them[991]. A portion of
these fall under the description of Malmesbury, viz. that of “scriptum
libertatis aecclesiarum.” and as he cites one of them himself by that
title, it is certain that these are what he intends. Now this document,
after the usual proem, recites that Æðelwulf with the consent of his
witan, not only gave the tenth part of the lands throughout his realm to
holy churches, but granted to his ministers, appointed throughout the
same, to have in perpetual freedom, so that his donation might remain
for ever free from all royal and secular burthens: in consideration of
which the bishops agreed to a special service weekly for the king and
his nobles[992], every Saturday.
-----
Footnote 991:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 270, 271, 275, 276, 1048, 1050, 1051, 1052, 1053,
1054, 1057.
Footnote 992:
The actual words are these:—“Ut decimam partem terrarum per regnum
nostrum, non solum sanctis aecclesiis darem verumetiam et ministris
nostris in eodem constitutis, in perpetuam libertatem habere
concessimus, ita ut talis donatio fixa incommutabilisque permaneat ab
omni regali servitio et omnium saecularium absoluta servitute.” These
are the expressions of Nos. 270, 271, 1050, 1054; which are
respectively dated at Wilton on the 22nd of April, 854, and convey
grants of separate lands to the thane Wigferð, to Malmesbury church,
to Glastonbury, and to the thane Hunsige, as appears by the statements
in the body of the charters, as well as by the endorsements, which are
to this effect:—No. 270. “Ista est libertas quam Æðelwulf rex suo
ministro Wiferðe in perpetuam haereditatem habere concessit, unum
cassatum in loco qui dicitur Heregearding hiwisc:” _Endorsed_, “Ðis
seondan æs landes bêc ðe Æðelwulf cyning Wiferðe his þegne salde.”
-----
Another class, and probably the most genuine, comprises the numbers 275
and 1048; in these documents, which are also grants of immunity to the
clergy and to laics, the granting words are as follows:—“Quamobrem ego
Æðelwulfus rex Occidentalium Saxonum cum consilio episcoporum et
principum meorum, consilium salubre atque uniforme remedium affirmavi;
ut aliquam portionem terrarum haereditariam, antea possidentibus
gradibus omnibus,—sive famulis et famulabus Dei Deo servientibus, sive
laicis,—semper decimam mansionem, ubi minimum sit, tum decimam
partem,—in libertatem perpetuam perdonare diiudicavi; ut sit tuta et
munita ab omnibus saecularibus servitutibus, fiscis regalibus, tributis
maioribus et minoribus, sive taxationibus quae nos dicimus Wíterǽden;
sitque libera omnium rerum, pro remissione animarum et peccatorum
nostrorum, Deo soli ad serviendum, sine expeditione, et pontis
instructione et arcis munitione, ut eo diligentius pro nobis ad Deum
preces sine cessatione fundant, quo eorum servitutem saecularem in
aliqua parte levigamus.” In consideration of this alleviation the
grateful clergy were to perform on the Wednesday in every week the same
services as the first class of documents stipulates for the Saturday. It
is to be observed that the two documents of this particular class,
though the authority for them is of the lowest description, and the
dates are altogether suspicious, seem to be of a much more genuine
character as to the grant itself than the first class: there is a
certain satisfactory accuracy about the definition of Wíterǽden which is
in so far suggestive of an authentic original; and when we translate the
very bad Latin “sine expeditione,” etc. by the genuine “bútan fyrdfare,”
etc., we shall have the following reasonable account to give of the
proceedings. Æðelwulf, being humbled and terrified by the distresses of
wars and the ravages of barbarous and pagan invaders, devised as a
useful remedy thus; he determined to liberate from all those various
exactions and services which went by the general name of wíteræden, the
tenth part of the estates which, though hereditary tenure had grown up
in them, were still subject to the ancient burthens of folcland, whether
they were in the hands of laics or clergy; that where the estate
amounted to ten hides, one was to be free; where it was a very small
quantity, at all events a tenth was to be so enfranchised: and as the
greater part of this land either was in the hands of the clergy, or was
very likely ultimately to come there, he granted this charitable act of
enfranchisement that on these estates the holders might be the better
able to devote themselves to the service of God, all other service being
discharged, except indeed the inevitable three. This seems best to
accord with Asser’s assertion that the king sacrificed to God the
services which arose to himself over a tenth part of all his realm. Now
it is to be observed that this could not apply to booklands which
already possessed an exemption, but only to folcland, whether become
hereditary or not; nor could _regnum_ possibly mean territory, but royal
rights, for Æðelwulf had no _territory_ except his private estates; nor
could the “trinoda necessitas” be called a “regale servitium et
tributum.” These were the dues demandable by the king from folcland, and
could only be discharged by consent of the Wítan. The expression of
Simeon appears also to be susceptible of no other translation: when he
says the king tithed “totum regni sui imperium,” I can see no
territorial division in his words, but only that the king relinquished a
tenth part of those imperial rights which he had as king.
A third class of documents however yet remains to be considered. In
these a clear division of lands is intended and is recorded. The first
of these in point of time are the Nos. 1051 and 1052, which bear the
suspicious dates of Easter in the year 854, the first indiction, and the
palace at Wilton: that is, with the exception of the indiction, the
dates of the first class of documents. These two charters declare that
Æðelwulf being determined by the advice of St. Swithin to tithe the
lands of all the realm that God had given him[993], increased the estate
which queen Friðogyð had granted to the church at Winchester, in
Taunton, by a certain amount of hides in various places. These are
followed by another of the same year, but with the proper indiction,
viz. the second, declaring that on the same occasion he gave other lands
to Winchester[994]; and in the succeeding year 855, we find him giving
an estate in Kent to Dun a minister or thane, “pro decimatione agrorum,
quam Deo donante, caeteris ministris meis facere decrevi.” I do not very
much insist upon giving one sense rather than another to this “_pro_
decimatione,” and am ready to admit that it may mean, ‘in respect of the
general tithing of lands which I intend to make to yourself as well as
the rest of my thanes,’ or that it may be read, ‘in place of that
tithing of lands which I intend to make to the rest of my thanes, I give
you such and such a particular estate.’ We must not be very fastidious
with Æðelwulf’s Latin, especially as there is much reason to believe
that in this case it is a mere translation of what would have been far
more intelligible and trustworthy Saxon.
-----
Footnote 993:
“Totius regni mihi a Deo collati decimans rura.” Nos. 1051, 1052.
Footnote 994:
“Quando decimam partem terrarum per omne regnum meum sanctis
aecclesiis dare decrevi,” etc. No. 1053. The Saxon version, whether it
were the original or only a translation, gives us the true sense of
this assertion: it runs thus:—“ðá ðá he teoðode gynd eall his
cynerice, ðone teoðan dǽl ealra his landa, mid his witena geþeahte,
into hálgum stowum,”—‘when throughout all his realm, he tithed the
tenth of all _his lands_ into holy places, by the counsel of his
witan.’ There was nothing to prevent Æðelwulf from giving a tenth or a
half of all his _own_ lands to whom he pleased.
-----
Trustworthy, however, I can hardly term the last document I have to
notice[995], Saxon though it be: this appears to be one of a very
suspicious series of instruments, prepared for the purpose of
corroborating some ancient claim on the part of Winchester, to have its
hundred hides at Chilcombe rated at _one_ hide only. It bears marks of
forgery in every line, and seems to have been made up out of some
history of Æðelwulf’s sojourn in Rome, but still is worth citing as
evidence of the tradition respecting tithe:—“In the name of him who
writeth in the book of life in heaven those who in this life please him
well, I Æðulf the king in this writ notify concerning the franchise of
Chilcombe, which Kynegils the king, who first of all the kings in Wessex
became a Christian, granted to his baptismal father Saint Birinus; and
which since then all the kings who have succeeded one another in Wessex
have enfranchised and advanced, although it never was reduced to writing
until the time of myself, who am the ninth king. Also I notify that I
established this franchise before Saint Peter in Rome, and the holy Pope
Leo, even so as it was settled between me and all my people, ere I went
to Rome, that is, that all the land comprised in this franchise shall
for ever be acquitted for one hide; because God’s possessions should
ever be more free than any worldly possession: and also my son Ælfred,
who went with me and was there consecrated king, pledged himself to the
Pope, both to further this franchise himself, and to urge his children
to the same, if God should grant him any. I also, before the same Pope,
tithed all the landed possessions which I had in England, to God, into
holy places for myself and for all my people: and in Rome with the
assistance and by the leave of the Pope, I wrought a minster for the
honour of God and to the worship of Saint Mary, his holy mother, and
placed therein a company of English, who ever both by night and day
shall serve God, for our people: and when I returned home I told all the
people what I had done in Rome. And they very earnestly thanked both God
and me for this, and all this pleased them well, and they said that with
their good will it should be so for ever. Now I implore, through the
holy Trinity and Saint Peter, and all the halidome that I visited in
Rome, both for myself and my people, that never either king or prince,
bishop or ealdorman, thane or reeve diminish what hath been established
with such witness: doubtless he that doth so will anger God and Saint
Peter, and all the saints that repose in the churches at Rome, and
miserably earn for himself the punishments of hell. Moreover, the
aforesaid holy Pope Leo laid God’s curse and Saint Peter’s, and all the
Saints’ and his own, on him that ever violates this; and also all this
people both ordained and laic did the like when I returned home and
announced this to them.”
-----
Footnote 995:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1057.
-----
If these data then be correct, Æðelwulf did three distinct things at
different times: he first released from all payments, except the
inevitable three, a tenth part of the folclands or unenfranchised lands,
whether in the tenancy of the church or of his thanes. In this tenth
part of the lands so burthened in his favour he annihilated the royal
rights, regnum or imperium; and as the lands receiving this privilege
were secured by charter, the Chronicle can justly say that the king
_booked_ them to the honour of God. A second thing he did, inasmuch as
he gave a tenth part of his own private estates of bookland to various
thanes or clerical establishments. And lastly, upon every ten hides of
his own land he commanded that one poor man, whether native born or
stranger, that is, whether of Wessex or some other kingdom, should be
maintained in food and clothing. It is unnecessary to waste words in
showing how utterly different all this really is from any grant of
tithe, and how entirely unfounded is the opinion that Æðelwulf made the
first legal enactment in behalf of tithe in this country. All that it
proves is, that Æðelwulf made a handsome endowment for the clergy, and
that a tenth part or a tenth person seemed to him to mark the proper
proportion between what he kept and what he gave up. It renders it
probable that the claim to tithe had already become familiar, since
Æðelwulf divided his land by ten; but it also shows that even the
Levitical tithe itself was misrepresented, if he believed this donation
of his to bear any resemblance to it. We may suppose the squire in a
country parish to have let the parson a house, and subsequently excused
him a tenth of the rent. This might be a very charitable act, and might
be done from very pure religious motives; but it would scarcely be
called tithe in the proper ecclesiastical sense of that word. This is
precisely what Æðelwulf did in Wessex.
In addition to leohtsceat, or money paid to supply lights, sulhælmysse
or plough-alms, and sáwlsceat, a present made to the church where a
testator desired to rest, in consideration of religious services to be
performed for the good of his soul, there was a due commonly known under
the name of cyricsceat. It is not clear what was the nature of this
impost, and its amount is uncertain, as well as the persons who were
liable to its payment. But in all probability it was at first a
recognitory rent paid to the particular churches from estates leased by
them; not so much in the nature of a fair equivalent for the use of such
lands, but as a token of beneficiary tenure, in the spirit of the
following words:—“Solventes inde censum per singulos annos missis
rectorum praedicti monasterii, iv denarios in festivitate sancti Remigii
Confessoris, ne videamur eas ex proprio, sed iure beneficiario
possidere[996].” It is therefore not unusual to find this impost
particularly mentioned in church-leases, under the names of cyricsceat,
census aecclesiasticus, cyriclád, aecclesiae munus, and similar terms.
The true character of the payment appears from two very clear examples
which I shall quote at length. “That in truth may say the thane Ælfsige
Hunláfing in respect to his obtaining this land free from every burthen,
to himself and his heirs, except burhbót, bridge-work, and military
service, remembering to his _landlord_, cyricsceat, sáwlsceat and his
tithes[997].” This landlord was a bishop, in all probability, but he is
not named.
-----
Footnote 996:
Schannat. Tradit. Fuldens. No. 452. So also in the Worcester Domesday,
Hemm. 500, 501. “De eodem manerio tenet Hugo de Grentesmaisnil
dimidiam hidam ad Lapeuuerte, et Baldewinus de eo; et fuit et est de
soca episcopi. De hac terra per singulos annos redduntur viii denarii
ad ecclesiam de Wirecestre, pro _circette_ et recognitione terre.”
Footnote 997:
Cod. Dipl. No. 433.
-----
In the year 902, Denewulf bishop of Winchester leased fifteen hides of
land to Beornwulf and his heirs, reserving a rent of forty-five
shillings yearly. “And every year let him assist in the bót of the
church[998] which that land belongeth to, in the same proportion as the
other folk do, each by the measure of his land; and let him justly pay
his cyricsceat, and perform his military service and bridge and fortress
work, as they do throughout all the folk[999].”
Footnote 998:
Hardly the repairs of the church, which were thus to be attended to
yearly; although in religious as in secular tenures, there can be no
doubt that the tenant was liable to be called upon to assist in the
repairs of the lord’s buildings. The distinction between “ðæt óðer
folc,” that is the other tenants, and “eal folc,” that is everybody
throughout the realm, is clear.
Footnote 999:
“And eác ǽlce geare fultumien tó ðǽre cyrican bote ðe ðet land tó hyrð
be ðém dæle ðe ðet óðer folc dó ǽlc be his landes meðe and ða
cyricsceáttes mid rihte ágyfe and fyrde and brycge and festergeweorc
hewe swá mon ofer eall folc dó.” Cod. Dipl. No. 1079.
-----
Between the years 879 and 909, the same bishop gave forty hides to
Ælfred, for his life. Upon these he reserved a rent of three pounds,
cyricsceats, cyricsceat-work, and the services of Ælfred’s men when
required at the bishop’s hunting and reaping[1000]. In like manner
Oswald reserved, in all the grants he made out of the church property at
Worcester, the church rights, that is to say, cyricsceat, toll, tax and
pannage, and also the services of the tenants at his hunting[1001].
Lastly between the years 871 and 877, bishop Ealhfrið granting eight
hides for three lives to duke Cúðred, reserved bridge-work, military
service, eight cyricsceats, the mass-priest’s rights and
soulsceats[1002].
-----
Footnote 1000:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1086.
Footnote 1001:
See vol. i. p. 518. App. E.
Footnote 1002:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1062.
-----
This cyricsceat then appears to have been originally a recognitory
service due to the lord from the tenant on church-lands. But it is very
clear that in process of time a new character was assumed for it, and it
was claimed of all men alike, as a due to the clergy. Here, again, the
Levitical legislation was taken to be applicable to the Christian
ministry. The Jews had been commanded to give first-fruits[1003], as
well as tithes; and if tithes belonged to the clergy by virtue of God’s
commandment, so did first-fruits also. These appear also to have been
called cyricsceat, and after a time became an established charge upon
the land of the freeman as well as the unfree. The earliest legislation
which we can discover, bearing unquestionably upon this point, is that
of Eádmund toward the middle of the tenth century[1004]; he strictly
commands payment of tithe, cyricsceat, and almsfee, and declares that he
who will not do it shall be excommunicated. By the time of Eádgár
however the matter seems to have been quite settled, and cyricsceat is
directed to be paid from the hearth of every freeman to the old
minster,—most likely to prevent a course similar to the arbitrary
consecration of tithes. And this remained a fixed charge upon the land
till the time of the Conquest, when it ceased to be generally paid, as
we may judge from the expressions of Fleta and other jurists[1005]; it
had passed in some cases into the hands of secular lords, with lands
alienated by the clergy, or taken from them. But in the time of Cnut it
was still paid as _primitiae seminum_, and it is not probable that his
successors altered his arrangements in this respect.
-----
Footnote 1003:
Deut. xviii. 4.
Footnote 1004:
Leg. Eádm. i. § 2. Thorpe, i. 244. The earlier notices are Leg. Ini, §
4, 61. Æðelst. i. Thorpe, i. 104, 140, 196. But these are not at all
conclusive, and would be equally applicable to the case of the
liability to this impost being confined to the tenants of the church.
Ini’s law only regulates the time at which the impost is to be paid,
and the particular estate from which it is due. Æðelstán confines
himself to commanding that his officers shall see the cyricsceat paid
at the proper times and to the proper places.
Footnote 1005:
“Churchesed certam mensuram bladi tritici signat, quam quilibet olim
sanctae Ecclesiae die sancti Martini, tempore tam Britonum quam
Anglorum, contribuerunt. Plures tamen magnates post Normannorum
adventum in Angliam, illam contributionem secundum veterem legem
Moysi, nomine Primitiarum dabant; prout in brevi regis Knuti ad summum
Pontificem transmisso continetur, in quibus illam contributionem
appellant Churchsed, quasi _semen ecclesiae_.” Fleta, i. 47, § 28.
“Chichesed, al. chircheomer, al. chircheambre:—un certein de blé batu
ke checun home devoit au tens de Bretuns e de engleis a le eglise le
iur seint Martin mes pus le venue de Normans si le priserent a lur vs
plusur seinourages, e le donerunt solum la veile lei Moysi, et nomine
primiciarum sicum lem troue en le lettres cnikt ke il envea a rome, e
est dit chirchesed quasi semen ecclesiae.” MS. Soc. Ant. lx. fol. 228,
b. This writ of Cnut to the Pope is not known to me, but we have a
letter addressed by him to his Witan from Rome, to which Fleta
probably alludes. “Nunc igitur præcipio et obtestor omnes meos
episcopos et regni praepositos, per fidem quam Deo et mihi debetis,
quatenus faciatis, ut antequam ego Angliam veniam, omnia debita, quae
Deo secundum legem antiquam debemus, sint soluta, scilicet eleemosynae
pro aratris, et decimae animalium ipsius anni procreatorum, et denarii
quos Romae ad sanctum Petrum debemus, sive ex urbibus sive ex villis,
et mediante Augusto decimae frugum, et in festivitate sancti Martini
_primitiae seminum_ ad ecclesiam sub cuius parochia quisque est, quae
Anglice _Circesceat_ nominantur.” Flor. Wigorn. ad. an. 1031.
-----
The liberality of the Anglosaxons was by no means confined to the grants
of land which they conferred upon the several churches, although it is
impossible to deny that these were most extravagant[1006]. At the same
time it is to be borne in mind that the clergy were always certain to
command a more than adequate supply of free and unfree labour; and that,
if their landed possessions thus increased their wealth to an
extraordinary degree, they also were the greatest contributors to the
general well-being through the superior excellence of their cultivation.
But the piety or the fears of the laity did not stop short at gifts of
land and serfs: jewels, cups, rings, crosses and caskets, money,
tapestry, and vestments, annual foundations of bread, wine, beer, honey,
and flesh, sometimes to enormous amounts, were devised by the will of
wealthy and penitent sinners: houses and curtilages, tolls and markets,
forests, harbours, fisheries, mines, commons of pasture and mast, flocks
and herds of swine, horses and oxen, testified to the liberality of
ealdormen and kings. Nor was the opportunity of investing their surplus
profitably always wanting: more than one mortgage is recorded, on terms
sufficiently favourable to the mortgagors; and loans on excellent
security, show that if the nobles knew where to find capitalists in
their need, the capitalist also knew very well how to turn his
facilities to good account. The necessity of providing out of these
large funds for the proper maintenance of the churches and the due
celebration of religious rites, can hardly be looked upon as a great
hardship; and although the demands of charity and the duties of
hospitality, may have seemed a heavy charge to the avaricious or the
selfish, we cannot but conclude, that no class of the community occupied
so dignified or so easy a position as the Anglosaxon clergy. The State,
fully aware of the value of their services, was not niggardly in
rewarding them. There was a ready acquiescence on the part of the laity
in the claims of the clergy to respect and trust; and, while these
continued to maintain a decent conformity to the duties of their
calling, we find a perfectly harmonious co-operation of all classes in
the church. Nor, amongst all the writings which the clergy—the only
writers—have left us, do we find any of those complaints and grievances,
which are apt to be made prominent enough when the members of that
powerful body believe their pretensions to be treated with less than due
consideration. The devoted partizan of Rome might choose to declare the
English church subject to such bondage as no other suffered; but, except
from quarrels of their own, the clergy never were exposed here to those
inconveniences which are unavoidable, upon any attempt on their part to
separate themselves from their fellow-members in the Christian
communion.
-----
Footnote 1006:
The estate of Chilcombe alone, belonging to Winchester, is reckoned at
one hundred hides, or at least three thousand acres, which they
succeeded in getting rated to the public burthens at one hide only.
Cod. Dipl. No. 642. But the whole of their estates in Hampshire appear
from the same document to have comprised no less than five hundred and
seventy-eight hides, which at my very low estimate of the hide amount
to _seventeen thousand, three hundred and forty acres_,—a very pretty
provision for one Chapter. The amount of lands and chattels devised by
various prelates almost exceeds belief.
-----
CHAPTER XI.
THE POOR.
There is hardly a question connected with the march of civilization more
difficult to answer satisfactorily than this: What is to be done with
the Poor?
In our own day, when subdivision of labour has been carried to an
unheard of extent, when property follows the natural law of accumulation
in masses, and society numbers the proletarian as an inevitable unit
among its constituents, the question presents itself in a threatening
and dangerous form, with difficulty surrounding it on every side, and
anarchy scowling in the background, hardly to be appeased or vanquished.
But such circumstances as those we live under are rare, and almost
unexampled in history: even the later and depraved days of Roman
civilization offer but a very insufficient pattern of a similar
condition[1007]. Above all it would be difficult to find any parallel
for them in countries where land is abundant, and the accumulation of
property slow: there may be pauperism in New York, but scarcely in the
valley of the Mississippi. The cultivator may live hardly, poorly; but
he can live, and as increasing numbers gather round him and form a
market for his superfluous produce, he will gradually become easy, and
at length wealthy. It is however questionable whether population will
really increase very fast in an agricultural community where a
sufficient provision is made for every family, and where there is an
unlimited fund, and power of almost indefinite extension. On the
contrary, it seems natural under these circumstances that the proportion
between the consumers and the means of living should long continue to be
an advantageous one, and no pressure will be felt as long as no effort
is made to give a false direction to the energies of any portion of the
community.
-----
Footnote 1007:
The Roman poor-law was, consequently upon the Roman imperial
institutions, of a strange, exceptional and most dangerous character.
The rulers literally fed the people: _panem et circenses_, food and
amusements; these were the relief which the wealthy and powerful
supplied, and if ever these were sparingly distributed, convulsions
and revolution were inevitable. The Λειτουργίαι, public dinners, and
other doles of a compulsory nature assisted the poorer among the
Athenians. (I have not cancelled this note, which was written long
before the events of February 1848 and their consequences had added
another pregnant example to the store of history.)
-----
But this cannot possibly be the case in a system which limits the amount
of the estate or hýd. Here a period must unavoidably arise where
population advances too rapidly for subsistence, unless a manufacturing
effort on an extensive scale is made, and made with perfect freedom from
all restraints, but those which prudence and well-regulated views of
self-interest impose. If want of rapid internal communication deprive
the farmer of a market, and compel him to limit his produce to the
requirements of his own family, there cannot be a doubt not only that he
will be compelled to remain in a stationary and not very easy position,
but that a difficulty will arise as to the disposal of a redundant
population. Many plans have been devised to meet this difficulty; a
favourite one has been at all times, to endeavour to find means of
limiting population itself, instead of destroying all restrictions upon
occupation. The profoundest thinkers of Greece, considering that a
pauper population is inconsistent with the idea of state, have
positively recommended violent means to prevent its increase[1008]:
infanticide and exposition thus figure among the means by which Plato
and Aristotle consider that full and perfect citizenship is to be
maintained. I have already touched upon some of the means by which our
forefathers attempted this regulation: emigration was as popular a
nostrum with them as with us: service in the comitatus, even servitude
on the land, were looked to as an outlet, and slavery probably served to
keep up something of a balance: moreover it is likely that a large
proportion of the population were entirely prevented from contracting
marriage: of this last number the various orders of the clergy, and the
monks must have made an important item. It is even probable that the
somewhat severe restrictions imposed upon conjugal intercourse may have
had their rise in an erroneous view that population might thus be
limited or regulated[1009]. But still, all these means must have
furnished a very inadequate relief: even the worn-out labourer,
especially if unfree, must have become superfluous, and if he was of
little use to his owner, there was little chance of his finding a
purchaser. What provision was made for him?
-----
Footnote 1008:
Περὶ δὲ ἀποθέσεως καὶ τροφῆς τῶν γιγνομένων ἔστω νομος μηδὲν
πεπηρωμένον τρέφειν, διὰ δὲ πλῆθος τέκνων, ἐὰν ἡ τάξις τῶν ἐθῶν κωλύῃ,
μηδὲν ἀποτίθεσθαι τῶν γιγνομένων· ὥρισται γὰρ δὴ τῆς τεκνοποιΐας τὸ
πλῆθος. Arist. Polit. vii. c. 14. See also Plato, Leg. bk. 5. Ed.
Bekk. p. 739, 740, etc. Ed. Stalbaum, vol. vi. p. 131, etc. The
tendency of Aristotle’s ideas on the subject may be gathered from his
notion that the Cretans encouraged παιδεραστια, in order to check
population. I am informed upon good authority, that in the Breisgau,
and especially the See-Kreis of Baden, the younger children, or any
supposed surplus, are permitted to die, of want of food, in order that
the property (Bauerngut), amounting sometimes to 100 morgen or 66
acres of land, may remain undivided. It is also certain that in other
parts of Europe, a woman who bears more than a certain settled number
of children is looked upon with contempt.
Footnote 1009:
The Pœnitentials recommend abstinence every Wednesday, Friday and
Sunday throughout the year: on all great fasts, high feasts and
festivals: during all penances, general or special: seven months
before and after parturition.
-----
The condition of a serf or an outlaw from poverty is an abnormal one,
but only so in a Christian community. In fact it seems to me that the
State neither contemplates the existence of the poor, nor cares for it:
the poor man’s right to live is derived from the moral and Christian,
not from the public law: so little true is the general assertion that
the poor man has a right to be maintained upon the land on which he was
born. The State exists for its members, the full, free and independent
citizens, self-supported on the land; and except as self-supported on
the land it knows no citizens at all. Any one but the holder of a free
hýd must either fly to the forest or take service, or steal and become a
þeóv. How the pagan Saxons contemplated this fact it is impossible to
say, but at the period when we first meet with them in history, two
disturbing causes were in operation; first the gradual loosening of the
principle of the mark-settlement, and the consequent accumulation of
landed estates in few hands; secondly the operation of Christianity.
This taught the equality of men in the eye of God, who had made all men
brothers in the mystery of Christ’s passion. And from this also it
followed that those who had been bought with that precious sacrifice
were not to be cast away. The sin of suffering a child to die unbaptized
was severely animadverted upon. The crime of infanticide could only be
expiated by years of hard and wearisome penance; but the penance
unhappily bears witness to the principle,—a principle universally pagan,
and not given up, even to this day, by nations and classes which would
repudiate with indignation the reproach of paganism, though thoroughly
imbued with pagan habits. In the seventh century we read of the
existence of poor, and we read also of the duty of assisting them. But
as the State had in fact nothing to do with them, and no machinery of
its own to provide for them, and as the clergy were _ex officio_ their
advocates and protectors, the State did what under the circumstances was
the best thing to do, it recognized the duty which the clergy had
imposed upon themselves of supporting the poor. It went further,—it
compelled the freeman to supply the clergy with the means of doing it.
In the last years of the sixth century, Gregory the Great informed
Augustine that it was the custom of the Roman church to cause a fourth
part of all that accrued to the altar from the oblations of the faithful
to be given to the poor; and this was beyond a doubt the legitimate
substitute for the old mode of distribution which the Apostles and their
successors had adopted while the church lurked in corners and in
catacombs, and its communicants stole a fearful and mysterious pleasure
in its ministrations under the jealous eyes of imperial paganism. As
soon however as the accidental oblations were to a great degree replaced
by settled payments (whether arising out of land or not[1010]), and
these were directed to be applied in definite proportions, we may
venture to say that the State had a poor-law, and that the clergy were
the relieving officers. The spirit of Gregory’s injunction is that a
part of _all_ that accrues shall be given to the poor; and this applies
with equal force to tithes, churchshots, bóts or fines, eleemosynary
grants, and casual oblations. In this spirit, it will be seen, the
Anglosaxon clergy acted, and we may believe that no inconsiderable fund
was provided for distribution. The liability of the tithe is the first
point upon which I shall produce evidence. The first secular notice of
this is contained in the following law of Æðelred, an. 1014:—“And
concerning tithe, the king and his _witan_ have chosen and said, as
right it is, that the third part of the tithe which belongs to the
church, shall go to the reparation of the church, and a second part to
the servants of God, and the third to God’s poor and needy men in
thraldom[1011].”
-----
Footnote 1010:
“To shipmen it is commanded, like as it also is to husbandmen, that
they should give unto God the tenth part of all the increase upon
their stock, and moreover give alms from the nine parts that are their
own. And so is it commanded to every man that from the same craft
wherewith he provides for his body’s need, he provide for that of his
soul also, which is better than the body.” Ecc. Institutes. Thorpe,
ii. 432. “O homo, inde Dominus decimas expetit, unde vivis. De
militia, de negotio, de artificio redde decimas.” St. Augustine, cited
by Ecgb. Excerp. 102. Thorpe, ii. 112.
Footnote 1011:
Æðelred, ix. § 6. Thorpe, i. 342. This passage of Augustine is
referred to in the collection commonly attributed to Ed. Conf. And a
detailed enumeration is given of tithe: thus, the tenth sheaf of corn;
from a herd of mares, the tenth foal; where there are only one or two
mares, a penny per foal. Similarly of cows, the tenth calf or an
_obolus_ per calf. The tenth cheese, or the tenth day’s milk. The
tenth lamb, fleece, measure of butter, and pig. Of bees according to
the yearly yield: from groves and meadows, mills and waters, parks,
stews, fisheries, brushwood, orchards; the produce of all business,
and indeed of everything the Lord has given, the tenth part shall be
rendered. Thorpe, i. 445.
But if positive public enactment be rare, it is not so with
ecclesiastical law, and the recommendations of the rulers of the
Anglosaxon church. The Poenitentials, Confessionals, and other works
compiled by these prelates for the guidance and instruction of the
clergy abound in passages wherein the obligation of providing for the
poor out of the tithe is either assumed or positively asserted. In the
‘Capitula et Fragmenta’ of Theodore, dating in the seventh century, it
is written, “It is not lawful to give tithes save unto the poor and
pilgrims[1012],” which can hardly mean anything but a prohibition to the
clergy, to make friends among the laity by giving them presents out of
the tithe; but which shows what were the lawful or legitimate uses of
tithe. Again he says[1013],—“If any one administers the xenodochia of
the poor, or has received the tithes of the people, and has converted
any portion thereof to his own uses,” etc.
-----
Footnote 1012:
Cap. et Fragm. Theod. Thorpe, ii. 65.
Footnote 1013:
Ibid. Thorpe, ii. 80. These xenodochia were hospitals or almshouses.
-----
In the Excerptions of archbishop Ecgberht we find the following
canon:—“The priests are to take tithes of the people, and to make a
written list of the names of the givers, and according to the authority
of the canons, they are to divide them, in the presence of men that fear
God. The first part they are to take for the adornment of the church;
but the second they are in all humility, mercifully to distribute with
their own hands, for the use of the poor and strangers; the third part
however the priests may reserve for themselves[1014].”
-----
Footnote 1014:
Excerp. Ecgb. Thorpe, ii. 98.
-----
In the Confessional of the same prelate we find the following
exhortation, to be addressed by the priest to the penitent:—“Be thou
gentle and charitable to the poor, zealous in almsgiving, in attendance
at church, and in the giving of tithe to God’s church and the
poor[1015].”
-----
Footnote 1015:
Confes. Ecgb. Thorpe, ii. 132.
-----
In the canons enacted under Eádgár, but which are at least founded upon
an ancient work of Cummianus, there is this entry:—“We enjoin that the
priests so distribute the people’s alms, that they do both give pleasure
to God, and accustom the people to alms[1016];” to which however there
is an addition which can scarcely well be understood of anything but
tithe: “and it is right that one part be delivered to the priests, a
second part for the need of the church, and a third part for the poor.”
-----
Footnote 1016:
Thorpe, ii. 256.
-----
The Canons of Ælfríc have the same entry, and the same mode of
distribution as those of Ecgberht: “The holy fathers have also appointed
that men shall pay their tithes into God’s church. And let the priest go
thither, and divide them into three: one part for the repair of the
church; the second for the poor; the third for God’s servants who attend
to the church[1017].”
-----
Footnote 1017:
Thorpe, ii. 352.
-----
Thus according to the view of the Anglosaxon church, ratified by the
express enactment of the witan, a third of the tithe was the absolute
property of the poor. But other means were found to increase this fund:
not only was the duty of almsgiving strenuously enforced, but even the
fasts and penances recommended or imposed by the clergy were made
subservient to the same charitable purpose. The canons enacted under
Eádgár provide[1018], that “when a man fasts, then let the dishes that
would have been eaten be all distributed to God’s poor.” And again the
Ecclesiastical Institutes declare[1019]: “It is daily needful for every
man that he give his alms to poor men; but yet when we fast, then ought
we to give greater alms than on other days; because the meat and the
drink, which we should then use if we did not fast, we ought to
distribute to the poor.”
-----
Footnote 1018:
Ibid. ii. 286.
Footnote 1019:
Ibid. ii. 437.
-----
So in certain cases where circumstances rendered the strict performance
of penance difficult or impossible, a kind of tariff seems to have been
devised, the application of which was left to the discretion of the
confessor. The proceeds of this commutation were for the benefit of the
poor. Thus Theodore teaches[1020]:—“But let him that through infirmity
cannot fast, give alms to the poor according to his means; that is, for
every day a penny or two or three.... For a year let him give thirty
shillings in alms; the second year, twenty; the third, fifteen.”
-----
Footnote 1020:
Poenit. Thorpe, ii. 61: see also ii. 83. Tit. de incestis.
-----
Again[1021]:—“He that knows not the psalms and cannot fast, must give
twenty-two shillings in alms for the poor, as commutation for a year’s
fasting on bread and water; and let him fast every Friday on bread and
water, and three forties; that is, forty days before Easter, forty
before the festival of St. John the Baptist, and forty before
Christmas-day. And in these three forties let him estimate the value or
possible value of whatsoever is prepared for his use, in food, in drink
or whatever it may be, and let him distribute the half of that value in
alms to the poor,” etc.
-----
Footnote 1021:
Thorpe, ii. 68. See also pp. 67, 69, 70, 134, 222.
-----
When we consider the almost innumerable cases in which penance must have
been submitted to by conscientious believers, and the frequent
hindrances which public or private business and illness must have thrown
in the way of strict performance, we may conclude that no slight
addition accrued from this source to the fund at the disposal of the
church for the benefit of the poor. Even the follies and vices of men
were made to contribute their quota in a more direct form. Ecgberht
requires that a portion of the spoil gained in war shall be applied to
charitable purposes[1022]; and he estimates the amount at no less than a
third of the whole booty. Again, it is positively enacted by Æðelred and
his witan that a portion of the fines paid by offenders to the church
should be applied in a similar manner: they say[1023], that such money
“belongs lawfully, by the direction of the bishops, to the buying of
prayers, to the behoof of the poor, to the reparation of churches, to
the instruction, clothing and feeding of those who minister to God, for
books, bells and vestments, but never for idle pomp of this world.”
-----
Footnote 1022:
Poenit. Ecgb. Thorpe, ii. 232.
Footnote 1023:
Æðelr. vi. § 51. Thorpe, i. 328.
-----
More questionable is a command inculcated by archbishop Ecgberht, that
the over-wealthy should punish themselves for their folly by large
contributions to the poor[1024]: “Let him that collecteth immoderate
wealth, for his want of wisdom, give the third part to the poor.”
-----
Footnote 1024:
Thorpe, ii. 232.
-----
Upon the bishops and clergy was especially imposed the duty of attending
to this branch of Christian charity, which they were commanded to
exemplify in their own persons: thus the bishops are admonished to feed
and clothe the poor[1025], the clerk who possessed a superfluity was to
be excommunicated if he did not distribute it to the poor[1026], nay the
clergy were admonished to learn and practise handicrafts, not only in
order to keep themselves out of mischief and avoid the temptations of
idleness, but that they might earn funds wherewith to relieve the
necessities of their brethren[1027]. Those who are acquainted with the
MSS. and other remains of Anglosaxon art are well-aware how great
eminence was attained by some of these clerical workmen, and how
valuable their skill may have been in the eyes of the wealthy and
liberal[1028].
-----
Footnote 1025:
Archbishop Ecgberht, from the Canons of the Council of Orleans:
“Episcopus pauperibus et infirmis, qui debilitate faciente non possunt
suis manibus laborare, victum et vestimentum, in quantum possibilitas
fuerit, largiatur.” Thorpe, ii. 105.
Footnote 1026:
Theod. Poen. xxv. § 6.
Footnote 1027:
Ecc. Inst. Thorpe, ii. 404.
Footnote 1028:
We know that Benedict Biscop received as much as eight hides of land
for one volume of geographical treatises, illustrated and illuminated.
Bed. Op. Min. 155.
-----
Another source of relief remains to be noticed: I mean the eleemosynary
foundations. It is of course well known that every church and monastery
comprised among its necessary buildings a xenodochium, hospitium or
similar establishment, a kind of hospital for the reception and
refection of the poor, the houseless and the wayfarer. But I allude more
particularly to the foundations which the piety of the clergy or laics
established without the walls of the churches or monasteries. Æðelstán
commanded the royal reeves throughout his realm to feed and clothe one
poor man each: the allowance was to be, from every two farms, an amber
of meal, a shank of bacon, or a ram worth fourpence, monthly, and
clothing for the whole year. The reeves here intended must have been the
bailiffs (villici, praepositi, túngeréfan) of the royal vills; and, if
they could not find a poor man in their vill, they were to seek him in
another[1029]. In the churches which were especially favoured with the
patronage of the wealthy and powerful, it was usual for the anniversary
of the patron to be celebrated with religious services, a feast to the
brotherhood and a distribution of food to the poor, which was
occasionally a very liberal one. In the year 832 we learn incidentally
what were the charitable foundations of archbishop Wulfred. He commanded
twenty-six poor men to be daily fed on different manors, he gave each of
them yearly twenty-six pence to purchase clothing, and further ordered
that on his anniversary twelve hundred poor men should receive each a
loaf of bread and a cheese, or bacon and one penny[1030].
-----
Footnote 1029:
Thorpe, i. 196.
Footnote 1030:
Cod. Dipl. No. 230.
-----
Oswulf, who was duke of East Kent at the commencement of the ninth
century, left lands to Canterbury charging the canons with doles upon
his anniversary: twenty ploughlands or about twelve hundred acres at
Stanstead were to supply the canons and the poor on that day with one
hundred and twenty wheaten loaves, thirty of pure wheat, one fat ox,
four sheep, two flitches, five geese, ten hens, ten pounds of cheese (or
if it happened to be a fastday, a weigh of cheese, fish, butter and eggs
_ad libitum_), thirty measures of good Welsh ale, and a tub of honey or
two of wine. From the lands of the brotherhood were to issue one hundred
and twenty _sufl_ loaves, apparently a kind of cake; while his lands at
Bourn were to supply a thousand loaves of bread and a thousand
_sufls_[1031]. Towards the end of the tenth century Wulfwaru devised her
lands to various relatives, and charged them with the support of twenty
poor men[1032]. About the same period Æðelstán the æðeling gave lands to
Ely on condition that they fed one hundred poor men on his anniversary,
at the expense of his heirs.
-----
Footnote 1031:
Cod. Dipl. No. 226. I think these súfls must be _subflata_, raised or
leavened bread. The contrast afforded by the heavy black rye bread of
Westphalia—technically Pumpernickel—will serve to explain the term. In
the east of England still a kind of cakes are called _Sowls_, probably
Sufls.
Footnote 1032:
Cod. Dipl. No. 694.
-----
From what has preceded it may fairly be argued that at all times there
was a very sufficient fund for the relief of the poor, seeing that
tithe, penance, fine, voluntary contribution, and compulsory assessment
all combined to furnish their quota. It now remains to enquire into the
method of its distribution.
The gains of the altar, whether in tithes, oblations, or other forms,
were strictly payable over to the metropolitan or cathedral church of
the district. The division of the fund was thus committed to the
consulting body of the clergy, and their executive or head; and the
several shares were thus distributed under the supervision and by the
authority of the bishop and his canons in each diocese. Private alms may
have remained occasionally at the disposal of the priest in a small
parish, but the recognized public alms which were the property of the
poor, and held in trust for them by the clergy, were necessarily managed
by the principal body, the clergy of the cathedral. To the vicinity of
the cathedral flocked the maimed, the halt, the blind, the destitute and
friendless, to be fed and clothed and tended for the love of God. In
that vicinity they enjoyed shelter, defence, private aid and public
alms; and as in some few cases the cathedral church was surrounded by a
flourishing city, they could hope for the chances which always accompany
a close manufacturing or retailing population. In this way the largest
proportion of the poor must have been collected near the chief church of
the diocese, on whose lands they found an easy settlement, in whose
xenodochia, hospitals and almshouses they met with a refuge, to whom
they gave their services, such as they were, and from whom they received
in turn the support which secular lords were unable or unwilling to
give: for the cathedral church being generally a very considerable
landowner, had the power of employing much more labour than the majority
of secular landlords in any given district.
But it must not be imagined that the poor could obtain no relief save at
the cathedral: every parish-church had its share of the public fund, as
well as private alms, devoted to this purpose; and to the necessary
buildings of every parish-church, however small, a xenodochium belonged.
When now we consider the great number of churches that existed all over
England in the tenth century, a number which most likely exceeded that
now in being, and consequently bore a most disproportionate ratio to the
then population of the country,—when we further consider that the poor
were comparatively few (so that a provision was absolutely made for the
case where a pauper could not be found in a royal village), we shall
have no difficulty in concluding that relief was supplied in a very
ample degree to the needy.
It does not necessarily follow, although in itself very probable, that
the claim to relief was a territorial one, that is that the man was to
have relief where he was born, lived or had gained a settlement by
labour. As some landowners, particularly in later times, especially
honoured certain churches with the grant of tithes consecrated to them,
it is possible that some paupers may have followed the convenient
precedent, and argued that whither the fund went, thither might the
recipients go also. And inasmuch as in many cases they would appear
under the guise of poor pilgrims, we can readily understand the immense
resort to particular shrines at particular periods, without overrating
the devotion or the superstition of the multitude. But all this might
have led to very serious consequences, had the facilities _really_ been
so great. In point of fact there were no facilities at all except for
such as were from age or infirmity incapable of doing any valuable
service. For among the Saxons the law of settlement applied inexorably
to all classes: no man had a legal existence unless he could be shown to
belong to some association connected with a certain locality, or to be
in the hand, protection and surety of a landed lord. Even a man of the
rank nearest the princes or ealdorman could not leave his land without
having fulfilled certain conditions; and the illegal migration of a
dependent man from one shire or one estate to another was punished in
the severest manner, in the persons of all concerned. He was called a
Flýma or fugitive, and the receiving or harbouring him was a grave
offence, punishable with a heavy fine, to be raised for the benefit of
the king’s officers in the shire the fugitive deserted, as well as that
wherein he was received[1033]. Even if the vigilance of the sheriffs and
ealdorman in two shires could be lulled, it was difficult to disarm the
selfishness of a landlord or an owner who thought the runaway’s services
of any value, or his price worth securing. A year and a day must elapse
ere the right abated from the “lord in pursuit,” for so was the lord
called over all Europe in the idioms of the several tongues[1034]; and
hence it cannot have been a very easy matter for any man to take
advantage of the poor-law, while it remained any one’s advantage to keep
him from falling into the state of pauperism: in other words, no man
whose labour still possessed any value would be so cast upon the world
as to have no refuge but what the church in Christian charity provided.
And this was the real and trustworthy test of destitution. If a man was
so helpless, friendless and useless that he could find no place in one
of the mutual associations, or in a lord’s family, it is clear that he
must become an outlaw as far as the State is concerned[1035]: he must
fly to the woods, turn serf or steal, or else commend himself as a
pauper to the benefits of clerical superintendence: but it is perfectly
obvious that none but the hopelessly infirm or aged could ever be placed
under such difficulty, in a country situated like England at any period
of the Saxon rule, and hence pauper relief was in practice strictly
confined to those for whom it was justly intended. The Saxon poor-law
then appears simple enough, and well might it be so: they had not tried
many unsuccessful and ridiculous experiments in œconomics, suffered
themselves to be misled by very many mischievous crochets, nor on the
whole did they find it necessary to make so expensive a protest against
bad commercial legislation as our poor-law has proved to us. But it is
not quite the simple thing it seems, and requires two elements for its
efficient working, which are not to be found at every period, namely a
powerful, conscientious clergy, and a system of property founded
exclusively upon the possession of land, and guarded by a compulsory
distribution of all citizens into certain fixed and settled
associations.
-----
Footnote 1033:
Ælfr. § 33. “Be boldgetǽle.”
Footnote 1034:
In Germany the Nachfolgende, Nachjagende Herr. See Fleta i. cap. 7. §
7, 8.
Footnote 1035:
The lordless man, of whom no right could be got, i.e. who being in no
sort of association, could neither support himself nor offer any
guarantee to society, was to be got into one by his family. If they
either could not or would not produce him at the folcmót and find a
lord for him, he became an outlaw, and any one might slay him. Leg.
Æðelstán. Thorpe, i. 200. The same prince decided that if any landless
man, who followed a lord in some other shire, should revisit his
family, they might receive him on condition of being answerable for
his offences. Thorpe, i. 204. But this seems to me to be the case
merely of a temporary visit, made of course with the knowledge and
permission of his lord.
-----
I have already called attention to the fact that it was usual, if not
necessary, on emancipating a serf, to provide for his subsistence. It is
however not improbable that, though such emancipated serfs remained for
the most part upon the land, and in the protection of their former lord,
they found some assistance from the poor fund, either directly from the
church, or indirectly through the private alms of the lord.
To resume all the facts of the case:—the State did not contemplate the
existence or provide for the support of any poor: it demanded that every
man should either be answerable for himself in a mutual bond of
association with his neighbours; or that he should place himself under
the protection of a lord, if he had no means of his own, and thus have
some one to answer for him. If unfree, the State of course held him to
be the chattel of his owner, who was only responsible to God for his
treatment of him. He therefore who had no means and could find no one to
take charge of him was an outlaw, that is, had no civil rights of any
kind.
But Christianity taught that there was something even above the State,
which the State itself was bound to recognize. It accordingly impressed
upon all communicants the moral and religious duty of assisting those of
their brethren whom the strict law condemned to misery; and the clergy
presented their organization as a very efficient machinery for the
proper distribution of alms. The voluntary oblations became in time
replaced by settled payments; but the law did not alter the disposition
which the clergy had adopted; it only recognized and sanctioned it;
first by making the various church payments compulsory upon all classes;
and secondly by enacting that the mode of distribution long prevalent
should be the legal one, in a secular as well as an ecclesiastical
obligation. And thus by slow degrees, as the State itself became
Christianized, the moral duty became a legal one; and the merciful
intervention of religion was allowed to supply what could not be found
in the strict rule of law.
It is unnecessary here to enquire how the power of the clergy to assist
the poor was gradually diminished, by the arbitrary consecration or
total subtraction of tithe, and other ecclesiastical payments; or how
the burthen of supporting the poor, having become a religious as well as
a civil duty, was shifted from one fund to another. It is enough to have
shown how the difficulty was attempted to be met during the continuance
of the Anglosaxon institutions. Under the present circumstances of
almost every European state, it is admitted that no man is to perish for
want of means, while means anywhere exist to feed him: and but two
questions can be admitted, namely:—Who is really in want? and,—How is he
to be fed at the least possible amount of loss to others? This is as far
as the State will go. Religion, properly considered, imposes very
different duties, and very different tests: but public morality alone
ought to teach that where the State has interfered on one side, it must
pay the penalty on the other; and that where it has positively
prescribed the directions in which men shall seek their subsistence, it
is bound to indemnify those whom these restrictions have tended to
impoverish. Every Poor Law is a protest against some wrong done: and in
proportion to the wrong is the energy of the protest itself. Do not
interfere with industry, and it will be very safe to leave poverty to
take care of itself. It is quite possible to conceive a state of things
in which crime and poverty shall be really convertible ideas, but of
this the history of the world as yet has given us no example.
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX A.
THE DOOMS OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
(Æðelstán V. Thorpe, i. 228, sq.)
“This is the ordinance which the bishops and the reeves belonging to
London have ordained, and with weds confirmed, among our ‘frith
gegildas,’ as well eorlish as ceorlish, in addition to the dooms which
were fixed at Greatanlea and at Exeter and at Thunresfeld.
“_This then is first._
“1. That no thief be spared over XII pence, and no person over XII
years, whom we learn according to folkright that he is guilty, and can
make no denial; that we slay him, and take all that he has; and first
take the ‘ceapgild’ from the property; and after that let the surplus be
divided into II: one part to the wife, if she be innocent, and were not
privy to the crime; and the other into II; let the king take half, half
the fellowship. If it be bócland or bishop’s land, then has the landlord
the half part in common with the fellowship.
“2. And he who secretly harbours a thief, and is privy to the crime and
to the guilt, to him let the like be done.
“3. And he who stands with a thief, and fights with him, let him be
slain with the thief.
“4. And he who oft before has been convicted openly of theft, and shall
go to the ordeal, and is there found guilty; that he be slain, unless
the kindred or the lord be willing to release him by his ‘wer,’ and by
the full ‘ceap-gild,’ and also have him in ‘borh,’ that he thenceforth
desist from every kind of evil. If after that he again steal, then let
his kinsmen give him up to the reeve to whom it may appertain, in such
custody as they before took him out of from the ordeal, and let him be
slain in retribution of the theft. But if any one defend him, and will
take him, although he was convicted at the ordeal, so that he might not
be slain; that he should be liable in his life, unless he should flee to
the king, and he should give him his life; all as it was before ordained
at Greatanlea, and at Exeter, and at Thunresfeld.
“5. And whoever will avenge a thief, and commits an assault, or makes an
attack on the highway; let him be liable in CXX shillings to the king.
But if he slay any one in his revenge, let him be liable in his life,
and in all that he has, unless the king is willing to be merciful to
him.
“_Second._
“That we have ordained: that each of us should contribute IV pence for
our common use within XII months, and pay for the property which should
be taken after we had contributed the money; and that all should have
the search in common; and that every man should contribute his shilling
who had property to the value of XXX pence, except the poor widow who
has no ‘forwyrhta’ nor any land.
“_Third._
“That we count always ten men together, and the chief should direct the
nine in each of those duties which we have all ordained; and [count]
afterwards their ‘hyndens’ together, and one ‘hynden-man’ who shall
admonish the X for our common benefit; and let these XI hold the money
of the ‘hynden,’ and decide what they shall disburse when aught is to
pay, and what they shall receive, if money should arise to us, at our
common suit; and let them also know that every contribution be
forthcoming which we have all ordained for our common benefit, after the
rate of XXX pence or one ox; so that all be fulfilled which we have
ordained in our ordinances, and which stands in our agreement.
“_Fourth._
“That every man of them who has heard the orders should be aidful to
others, as well in tracing as in pursuit, so long as the track is known;
and after the track has failed him, that one man be found where there is
a large population, as well as from one tithing where a less population
is, either to ride or to go (unless there be need of more) thither where
most need is, and as they all have ordained.
“_Fifth._
“That no search be abandoned, either to the north of the march or to the
south, before every man who has a horse has ridden one riding; and that
he who has not a horse, work for the lord who rides or goes for him,
until he come home; unless right shall have been previously obtained.
“_Sixth._
“1. Respecting our ‘ceapgild’: a horse at half a pound, if it be so
good; and if it be inferior, let it be paid for by the worth of its
appearance, and by that which the man values it at who owns it, unless
he have evidence that it be as good as he says, and then let [us] have
the surplus which we there require.
“2. An ox at a mancus, and a cow at XX, and a swine at X, and a sheep at
a shilling.
“3. And we have ordained respecting our ‘theowmen’ whom men might have;
if anyone should steal him, that he should be paid for with half a
pound; but if we should raise the ‘gild,’ that it should be increased
above that, by the worth of his appearance, and that we should have for
ourselves the surplus that we then should require. But if he should have
stolen himself away, that he should be led to the stoning, as it was
formerly ordained; and that every man who had a man, should contribute
either a penny or a halfpenny, according to the number of the
fellowship, so that we might be able to raise the worth. But if he
should make his escape, that he should be paid for by the worth of his
appearance, and we all should make search for him. If we then should be
able to come at him, that the same should be done to him that would be
done to a Wylisc thief, or that he be hanged.
“4. And let the ‘ceapgild’ always advance from XXX pence to half a
pound, after we make search; further, if we raise the ‘ceap-gild’ to the
full ‘angilde’; and let the search still continue, as was before
ordained, though it be less.
“_Seventh._
“That we have ordained: let do the deed whoever may that shall avenge
the injuries of us all, that we should be all so in one friendship as in
one foeship, whichever it then may be; and that he who should kill a
thief before other men, that he be XII pence the better for the deed,
and for the enterprize, from our common money. And he who should own the
property for which we pay let him not forsake the search, on peril of
our ‘oferhyrnes,’ and the notice therewith, until we come to payment;
and then also we would reward him for his labour, out of our common
money, according to the worth of the journey, lest the giving notice
should be neglected.
“_Eighth._
“1. That we gather to us once in every month, if we can and have
leisure, the ‘hynden men’ and those who direct the tithings, as well
with ‘bytt-fylling,’ as else it may concern us, and know what of our
agreement has been executed; and let these XII men have their refection
together, and feed themselves according as they may deem themselves
worthy, and deal the remains of the meat for the love of God.
“2. And if it then should happen that any kin be so strong and so great,
within land or without, whether ‘XII hynde’ or ‘twy hynde,’ that they
refuse us right, and stand up in defence of a thief; that we all of us
ride thereto with the reeve within whose ‘manung’ it may be.
“3. And also send on both sides to the reeves, and desire from them aid
of so many men as may seem to us adequate for so great a suit, that
there may be the more fear in those culpable men for our assemblage, and
that we all ride thereto, and avenge our wrong, and slay the thief, and
those who fight and stand with him, unless they be willing to depart
from him.
“4. And if any one trace a track from one shire to another, let the men
who there are next take to it, and pursue the track till it be made
known to the reeve; let him then with his ‘manung’ take to it, and
pursue the track out of his shire, if he can; but if he cannot, let him
pay the ‘angylde’ of the property, and let both reeveships have the full
suit in common, be it wherever it may, as well to the north of the march
as to the south, always from one shire to another; so that every reeve
may assist another, for the common ‘frith’ of us all, by the king’s
‘oferhyrnes.’
“5. And also that everyone shall help another, as it is ordained and by
‘weds’ confirmed; and such man as shall neglect this beyond the march,
let him be liable in XXX pence, or an ox, if he aught of this neglect
which stands in our writings, and we with our ‘weds’ have confirmed.
“6. And we have also ordained respecting every man who has given his
‘wed’ in our gildships, if he should die, that each gild-brother shall
give a ‘gesufel’ loaf for his soul, and sing a fifty, or get it sung
within XXX days.
“7. And we also command our ‘hiremen’ that each man shall know when he
has his cattle, or when he has not, on his neighbour’s witness, and that
he point out to us the track, if he cannot find it within three days;
for we believe that many heedless men reck not how their cattle go, for
over-confidence in the ‘frith.’
“8. Then we command that within III days he make it known to his
neighbours, if he will ask for the ‘ceap-gild’; and let the search
nevertheless go on as it was before ordained, for we will not pay for
any unguarded property, unless it be stolen. Many men speak fraudulent
speech. If he cannot point out to us the track, let him show on oath
with III of his neighbours that it has been stolen within III days, and
after that let him ask for his ‘ceap-gild.’
“9. And let it not be denied nor concealed, if our lord or any of our
reeves should suggest to us any addition to our ‘frith-gilds’ that we
will joyfully accept the same, as it becomes us all, and may be
advantageous to us. But let us trust in God, and our kingly lord, if we
fulfil all things thus, that the affairs of all folk will be better with
respect to theft than they before were. If, however, we slacken in the
‘frith’ and the ‘wed’ which we have given, and the king has commanded of
us, then may we expect, or well know, that these thieves will prevail
yet more than they did before. But let us keep our ‘weds’ and the
‘frith’ as is pleasing to our lord; it greatly behoves us that we devise
that which he wills; and if he order and instruct us more, we shall be
humbly ready.
“_Ninth._
“That we have ordained: respecting those thieves whom one cannot
immediately discover to be guilty, and one afterwards learns that they
are guilty and liable; that the lord or the kinsmen should release him
in the same manner as those men are released who are found guilty at the
ordeal.
“_Tenth._
“That all the ‘witan’ gave their ‘weds’ altogether to the archbishop at
Thunresfeld, when Ælfeah Stybb and Brihtnoth Odda’s son came to meet the
‘gemot’ by the king’s command; that each reeve should take the ‘wed’ in
his own shire: that they would all hold the ‘frith’ as king Æthelstan
and his ‘witan’ had counselled it, first at Greatanlea, and again at
Exeter, and afterwards at Feversham, and a fourth time at Thunresfeld,
before the archbishop and all the bishops, and his ‘witan’ whom the king
himself named, who were thereat: that those dooms should be observed
which were fixed at this ‘gemot,’ except those which were there before
done away with; which was, Sunday marketing, and that with full and true
witness any one might buy out of port.
“_Eleventh._
“That Æthelstan commands his bishops and his ‘ealdormen’ and all his
reeves over all my realm, that ye so hold the ‘frith’ as I and my
‘witan’ have ordained; and if any of you neglect it, and will not obey
me, and will not take the ‘wed’ of his ‘hiremen,’ and he allow of secret
compositions, and will not attend to these regulations as I have
commanded, and it stands in our writs; then be the reeve without his
‘folgoth’, and without my friendship, and pay me cxx shilling; and each
of my thanes who has land, and will not keep the regulations as I have
commanded, [let him pay] half that.
“_Twelfth._
“1. That the king now again has ordained to his ‘witan’ at Witlanburh,
and has commanded it to be made known to the archbishop by bishop
Theodred, that it seemed to him too cruel that so young a man should be
killed, and besides for so little, as he has learned has somewhere been
done. He then said, that it seemed to him, and to those who counselled
with him, that no younger person should be slain than xv years, except
he should make resistance or flee, and would not surrender himself; that
then he should be slain, as well for more as for less, whichever it
might be. But if he be willing to surrender himself, let him be put into
prison, as it was ordained at Greatanlea, and by the same let him be
redeemed.
“2. Or if he come not into prison, and they have none, that they take
him in ‘borh’ by his full ‘wer,’ that he will evermore desist from every
kind of evil. If the kindred will not take him out, nor enter into
‘borh’ for him, then let him swear as the bishop may instruct him, that
he will desist from every kind of evil, and stand in servitude by his
‘wer.’ But if he after that again steal, let him be slain or hanged, as
was before done to the elder ones.
“3. And the king has also ordained, that no one should be slain for less
property than xii pence worth, unless he will flee or defend himself;
and that then no one should hesitate, though it were for less. If we it
thus hold, then trust I in God that our ‘frith’ will be better than it
has before been.”
------------------
The following Flemish Charters of Liberties seemed to me fitting to be
recorded here. They are taken from the ‘Piéces justificatives’ of
Warnkönig’s History of Flanders, vol. ii.
I. _Première Charte ou_ Keure _de la ville de St. Omer, accordée par
Guillaume de Normandie, comte de Flandre, et confirmée par
Louis-le-Gros, roi de France. 14 Avril 1127._
“Ego Guillelmus Dei gratia Flandrensium Comes petitioni Burgensium
Sancti Audomari contraïre nolens, pro eo maxime quia meam de Consulatu
Flandriæ petitionem libenti animo receperunt, et quia honestius et
fidelius cæteris Flandrensibus erga me semper se habuerunt, lagas seu
consuetudines subscriptas perpetuo eis iuro concedo, et ratas manere
præcipio.
Ҥ 1. Primo quidem ut erga unumquemque hominem, pacem eis faciam et eos
sicut homines meos sine malo ingenio manuteneam et defendam; rectumque
iudicium scabinorum erga unumquemque hominem, et erga me ipsum eis fieri
concedam; ipsisque scabinis libertatem, qualem melius habent scabini
terræ meæ constituam.
Ҥ 2. Si quis Burgensium Sancti Audomari alicui pecuniam suam
crediderit, et ille cui credita est, coram legitimis hominibus et in
villa sua hereditariis sponte concesserit, quod si die constituta
pecuniam non persolverit, ipse vel bona eius, donec omnia reddat,
retineantur: si persolvere noluerit, aut si negaverit hanc conventionem,
et testimonio duorum Scabinorum, vel duorum iuratorum inde convictus
fuerit, donec debitum solvat, retineatur.
Ҥ 3. Si quis de iure christianitatis ab aliquo interpellatus fuerit, de
villa Sancti Audomari alias pro iustitia exequenda, non exeat: sed in
eadem villa coram episcopo vel eius Archidiacono, vel suo presbytero,
quod iustum est clericorum, scabinorumque iudicio exequatur: nec
respondeat alicui, nisi tribus de causis; videlicet de infractura
ecclesiæ, vel atrii, de lesione clerici, de oppressione et violatione
feminæ: quod si de aliis causis querimonia facta fuerit coram iudicibus
et præposito meo hoc finiatur. Sic enim coram K. Comite et episcopo
Johanne statutum fuit.
Ҥ 4. Libertatem vero, quam antecessorum meorum temporibus habuerunt eis
concedo. Scilicet quod nunquam de terra sua in expeditionem
proficiscentur, excepto si hostilis exercitus terram Flandriæ invaserit;
tunc me et terram meam defendere debebunt.
Ҥ 5. Omnes qui Gildam eorum habent, et ad illam pertinent, et infra
cingulam villæ suæ manent, liberos omnes a teloneo facio, ad portum
Dichesmudæ et Graveningis; et per totam terram Flandriæ, eos liberos a
Sewerp facio. Apud Batpalmas teloneum, quale donant Atrebatenses, eis
constituo.
Ҥ 6. Quisquis eorum ad terram imperatoris pro negotiatione sua
perexerit, a nemine meorum hansam persolvere cogatur.
“§ 7. Si contigerit mihi aliquo tempore præter terram Flandriæ aliam
conquirere, aut si concordia pacis inter me et avunculum meum H. regem
Angliæ facta fuerit, in conquisita terra illa aut in toto regno Anglorum
eos liberos ab omni teloneo et ab omni consuetudine in concordia illa
recipi faciam.
“§ 8. In omni mercato Flandriæ si quis clamorem adversus eos
suscitaverit iudicium scabinorum de omni clamore sine duello subeant; ab
duello vero ulterius liberi sint.
Ҥ 9. Omnes qui infra murum sancti Audomari habitant et deinceps sunt
habitaturi, liberos a Cavagio hoc est a capitali censu, et de
advocationibus constituo.
“§ 10. Pecuniam eorum quæ post mortem Comitis K. eis ablata est, et quæ
propter fidelitatem quam erga me habent adhuc eis detinetur, aut infra
annum reddi faciam, aut iudicio scabinorum institiam eis fieri concedam.
“§ 11. Præterea rogaverunt regem Franciæ et Raulphum de Parona, ut
ubicumque in terram illorum venerint, liberi sint ab omni teloneo, et
traverso et passagio; quod et concedi volo.
“§ 12. Communionem autem suam sicut eam iuraverunt permanere præcipio,
et a nemine dissolvi permitto, et omne rectum rectamque iustitiam sicut
melius stat in terra mea, scilicet in Flandria, eis concedo.
“§ 13. Et sicut meliores et liberiores Burgenses Flandriæ ab omni
consuetudine liberos deinceps esse volo; nullum scoth, nullam taliam,
nullam pecuniæ suæ petitionem ab eis requiro.
Ҥ 14. Monetam meam in Sancto Audomaro unde per annum XXX libras habebam
et quidquid in ea habere debeo, ad restaurationem damnorum suorum et
gildæ suæ sustentamentum constituo. Ipsi vero Burgenses monetam per
totam vitam meam stabilem et bonam, unde villa sua melioretur,
stabiliant.
Ҥ 15. Custodes qui singulis noctibus per annum vigilantes castellum
Sancti Audomari custodiunt, et qui præter feodum suum et præbendam sibi
antiquitus constitutam in avena et caseis et in pellibus arietum,
iniuste et violenter ab unaquaque domo in eadem villa, scilicet ad
Sanctum Audomarum sanctumque Bertinum in natali domini panem unum et
denarium unum aut duos denarios exigere solent, aut pro hiis pauperum
vadimonia tollebant, nihil omnino deinceps præter feodum suum et
præbendam suam exigere audeant.
Ҥ 16. Quisquis ad Niuverledam venerit, undecumque venerit, licentiam
habeat veniendi ad Sanctum Audomarum cum rebus suis in quacunque navi
voluerit.
Ҥ 17. Si cum Boloniensium comite S. concordiam habuero, in illa
reconciliatione eos a Teloneo et Seuwerp apud Witsant et per totam
terram eius liberos esse faciam.
“§ 18. Pasturam adiacentem villæ Sancti Audomari in nemori, quod dicitur
Lo, et in paludibus et in pratis et in bruera et in Hongrecoltra, usibus
eorum, exceptâ terrâ Lazarorum, concedo, sicut fuit tempore Roberti
Comitis Barbati.
“§ 19. Mansiones quoque, quæ sunt in ministerio Advocati Sancti Bertini,
illas videlicet quæ inhabitantur, ab omni consuetudine liberas esse
volo: dabuntque singulæ denarios XII in festo Sancti Michælis, et de
brotban denarios XII et de byrban denarios XII. Vacuæ autem nihil
dabunt.
Ҥ 20. Si quis extraneus aliquem Burgensium Sancti Audomari agressus
fuerit, et ei contumeliam vel iniuriam irrogaverit vel violenter ei sua
abstulerit, et cum hac iniuria manus eius evaserit, postmodum vocatus a
castellano vel uxore eius seu ab eius dapifero, infra triduum ad
satisfactionem venire contempserit aut neglexerit; ipsi communiter
iniuriam fratris sui in eo vindicabunt, in qua vindicta si domus diruta
vel combusta fuerit, aut si quispiam vulneratus vel occisus fuerit,
nullum corporis aut rerum suarum periculum, qui vindictam perpetravit,
incurrat, nec offensam meam super hoc sentiat vel pertimescat; si vero,
qui iniuriam intulit presentialiter tentus fuerit, secundum leges et
consuetudines villæ presentialiter iudicabitur et secundum quantitatem
facti punietur; scilicet oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente, caput pro
capite reddet.
Ҥ 21. De morte Eustachii de Stenford quicunque aliquem Burgensium
Sancti Audomari perturbaverit et molestaverit, reus proditionis et
mortis K. Comitis habeatur; quoniam pro fidelitate mea factum est,
quidquid de eo factum est; et sicut iuravi et fidem dedi, sic eos erga
parentes eius reconciliare et pacificare volo.
Ҥ 25. Hanc igitur Communionem tenendam, has supradictas consuetudines
et conventiones esse observandas fide promiserunt et sacramento
confirmaverunt: Ludovicus rex Francorum, Guillelmus comes Flandriæ,
Raulphus de Parona, Hugo Candavena, Hosto Castellanus, et Guillelmus
frater eius, Robertus de Bethuna, et Guillelmus filius eius, Anselmus de
Hesdinio, Stephanus Comes Boloniensis, Manasses Comes Gisnensis,
Galterus de Lillers, Balduinus Gandavensis, Hiuvannus frater eius,
Rogerus Castellanus Insulensis, et Robertus filius eius, Razo de Gavera,
Daniel de Tenremot, Helias de Sensen, Henricus de Brocborc, Eustachius
advocatus, et Arnulphus filius eius, Castellanus Gandavensis, Gervasius
Petrus dapifer, Stephanus de Seningaham. Confirmatum est hoc privilegium
et a Comite Guillelmo et prædictis Baronibus istis fide et sacramento
sancitum, et collaudatum anno dominicæ Incarnationis MCXXVII, XVIII Kl.
Maii, feria V^a die festo Sancti Tiburtii et Valeriani.”
II. _Additions et changemens faits à la_ Keure _précédente par le Comte
Thierri d’Alsace. 22 Août 1128._
Ҥ 1. Monetam quam Burgenses Sancti Audomari habuerant, Comiti liberam
reddiderunt eo quod eos benignius tractaret, et lagas suas eis libentius
ratas teneret: et insuper ut ceteri Flandrenses eidem sua incrementa
celerius redderent.
Ҥ 2. Teloneum vero suum ab eodem in perpetuo censu receperunt,
quotannis C solidos dando.
Ҥ 3. Si quis etiam eorum mortuo aliquo consanguineo suo, portionem
aliquam possessionis illius sibi obvenire credens et in comitatu
Flandriæ manens, cum eo, qui possessionem illam tenebit, vel partiri
infra annum neglexerit, vel eum super hoc per iudices et scabinos minime
convenerit; qui per annum integrum sine legitima calumnia tenuerit,
quiete deinceps teneat, et nulli super hoc respondeat. Si autem heres in
comitatu Flandriæ non fuerit, infra annum, quo redierit, cum possessore
agat supradicto modo: alioquin qui tenebit sine ulla inquietatione
teneat. Si autem herede aliquandiu peregre commorante, et cum redierit
portionem suam requirente, possidens se cum eo partitum esse dixerit, si
ille per quinque Scabinos probare falsum esse poterit, hereditas quæ eum
attingit ei reddetur: alioquin possidens per quatuor legitimos viros se
ei portionem suam dedisse probabit; et ita quietus erit. Quod si heres
infra annos discretionis fuerit, pater vel mater, si supervixerint, vel
qui eum manutenebit, portionem quæ illum attinget scabinis et aliis
legitimis viris infra annum obitus illius ostendat, et si eis visum
fuerit quod ille fideliter servare debeat, ei comittatur. Sin autem
iudicio et providentia illorum ita disponatur, ne heres damnum alioquod
patiatur; et cum ad annos discretionis venerit, et opportunum fuerit,
hereditate sua integre et sine aliqua diminutione investiatur.
Ҥ 4. Item si quis alicui filium suum, vel filiam in matrimonio
coniunxerit, et filius ille, vel filia sine prole obierint, ad patrem et
matrem eorum si supervixerint, si autem mortui fuerint ad alios filios
eorum, vel filios filiorum redeat hereditas quæ pertinebat ad filium vel
filiam, quos aliis matrimonio copulaverant; et viventibus patre vel
matre eorum hereditas illa cum supradictis personis tantum dividatur:
mortuis autem illis propinquiores consanguinei illam, prout iustum est,
sortiantur.
“Hanc igitur communionem tenendam, et supradictas institutiones et
conventiones esse observandas fide promiserunt et sacramento
confirmaverunt Theodoricus, Comes Flandriæ, Willelmus Castellanus Sancti
Audomari, Willelmus de Lo, Iwannus de Gandavo, Danihel de Tenramunda,
Raso de Gavera, Gislebertus de Bergis, Henricus de Broburc, Castellanus
de Gandavo, Gervasius de Brugis.—Præfati Barones insuper iuraverunt,
quod si Comes Burgenses Sancti Audomari extra consuetudines suas eiicere
et sine iudicio Scabinorum tractare vellet, se a comite discessuros et
cum eis remansuros, donec comes eis suas consuetudines integre
restitueret et iudicium Scabinorum eos subire permitteret. Actum anno
dominicæ Incarnationis MCXXVIII in octavis assumptionis Beatæ Mariæ.”
III. _Charte de donation du fonds de la Gild-halle de St. Omer aux
Bourgeois de cette ville._ 1151.
“Ego Theodoricus Dei patientia Flandrensium Comes, consensu uxoris meæ
Sibillæ, concedente ita quoque Philippo filio meo, terram in qua
Ghildhalla apud sanctum Audomarum in foro sita est, cum scopis et
adpenditiis suis tam ligneis quam lapideis, burgensibus eiusdem villæ
hereditario iure possidendam, et ad omnem mercaturam tam in appenditiis,
quam in Ghildhalla exercendam tradidi: hanc quoque libertatem eis
concessi, ut si quis in eam venerit, undecunque reus fuerit, in ipsa
domo iudici in eum manum non mittere licebit; ille autem sub cuius
custodia Ghildhalla tenetur, admonitus a iudice reum extra limen
Ghildhallæ conducens nisi fideiussione se defenderit, in præsentia
duorum scabinorum vel plurium eum iudici tradet: iudex vero eum in
potestate sua habens secundum quantitatem facti cum eo aget. Illud
quoque addidimus, quod alienus negotiator nusquam, nisi in prædicta domo
aut in appendiciis eius, vel in pleno foro merces suas vendendas exponat
aut vendat. Solis autem burgensibus in foro, in Ghildhalla, seu magis
velint, is propria domo sua, vendere liceat.
“Quoniam autem humana omnia ex rerum et temporum varietate senescunt,
sigilli mei auctoritate et subscriptorum testimonio hoc corroboravi.
Walterus Castellanus sancti Audomari, Arnoldus Comes de Gisnes, Gerardus
Præpositus, Arnulphus de Arde, Henricus Castellanus de Brübborg,
Elenardus de Sinningehem, Hugo de Ravensberghe, Baldevinus de Bailgul,
Michael Iunior, Christianus de Aria, Guido Castellanus de Bergis,
Rogerus de Wavrin, Helinus filius eius.”
IV. _Keure de Bruges._ Vers 1190.
“Hæc est lex et consuetudo quam Brugenses tenere debent a comite
Philippo instituta. Si quis alicui vulnus fecerit infra pontem sanctæ
Mariæ, infra Botrebeika, infra usque ad domum Galteri Calvi, infra usque
ad domum Lanikini carpentarii, supra terram Balduini de Prat, infra
fossatum veteris molendini, et illud veritate scabinorum cognoscatur de
quacunque re factum sit, ad domum in qua ille manet, qui vulnus
imposuit, per scabinos et per iustitiam comitis submoncatur. Qui
submonitus, si scabinis se præsentet, veritate inquisita de illo qui
vulnus fecerit per sexaginta libras forefactum emendet, et si scabini
sciunt quod vulnus non fecerit, liber et in pace remanebit. Si die quâ
submonebitur se non præsentaverit, remanebat in forefacto sexaginta
librarum, et si scabini voluerint domum eius prosternere, poterunt et in
respectum ponere, sed ex toto condonare non possunt nisi voluntate
Comitis.
“2. Si verò quis aliquem in domo suâ assiluerit, unde clamor factus sit,
scabini et iustitia domum ibunt inspicere: et si scabini poterunt
videre, assultum esse apparentem, ille de quo clamor factus est
submoneri debet; qui si scabinis se præsentaverit et illum intellexerint
assultum fecisse, LX libras amittet. Si vero cognoverint illum assultum
non fecisse, liber et in pace recedat. Si autem ad diem submonitionis
venire noluerit, domo ejus prostrata LX librarum reus erit. Quod si alii
assultui interfuerint, de quibus clamor factus non sit, si comes super
hoc veritatem scabinorum requisierit, scabini veritatem inquirere
debent, et quotquot veritate scabinorum de assultu tenebuntur,
unusquisque eorum LX librarum reus erit, ac si de eo clamor factus sit.
Si vero scabini nullum assultum agnoscere potuerunt ab ipsis super hoc
veritas est inquirenda.
“3. Qui cum armis molutis infra præfinitos terminos aliquem fugaverit,
si veritate scabinorum convincatur forisfacto librarum LX tenebitur: si
aliquis assiliatur, quidquid ipse faciat in defendendo corpus suum nullo
tenebitur forisfacto.
“4. Qui aliquem bannitum occiderit in hoc nullum facit forisfactum.
“5. Quicumque testimonio scabinorum convictus fuerit de rapina, LX lib.
de forisfacto dabit et dampnum rapinæ restituet.
“6. Qualemcunque concordiam bannitus faciat comiti, remanebit tamen
bannitus, donec viris Brugensibus ad opus castri LX solidos dederit.
“7. Qui bannitum de forefacto LX libr. hospitio susceperit, veritate
scabinorum convictus LX libras amittet.
“8. Qui aliquem fuste vel baculo percusserit, convictus a scabinis in
forisfacto X lib. incidit de quibus comes habebit V lib. Castellanus XX
sol. ille qui percussus est LX sol. et ad opus castri XX sol.
“9. Qui pugno vel palma aliquem percusserit seu per capillos acceperit
inde per scabinos convictus LX sol. dabit unde XXX solidi comitis erunt,
percussi XV sol. castallani X sol. ad opus castri V sol. Qui aliquem per
capillos ad terram traxerit sive per lutum trahendo pedibus
conculcaverit, X lib. comiti dabit, maletractato XV solidos, Castellano
X sol. et ad castrum V solidos.
“10. Qui vero alicui convitia dixerit, si testimonio duorum scabinorum
convincatur, illi cui convicia dixerit V solidos dabit, Iusticiæ XII
denarios.
“11. Qui duobus scabinis aut pluribus inducias pacis, quæ treuiæ
dicuntur, de quâlibet discordiâ dare noluerit, illud emendabit per LX
lib.
“12. Si dissensiones aut discordiæ aut guerræ aut aliquod aliud malum
inter probos viros oppidi exoriatur, unde ad aures scabinorum clamor
perveniat, salvo iure comitis, scabini illud componere et pacificare
poterunt. Qui verò compositionem vel pacem quam super hoc scabini
consolidaverint, sequi noluerit, forisfactum LX lib. incurret.
“13. Qui ea dedixerit quæ scabini in iudicio vel testimonio
affirmaverint, LX lib. amittet, et unicuique scabinorum qui ab co
dedictus erit X libras dabit.
“14. Quicumque per vim fœminam violaverit, si de eo veritate
scabinorum convincatur, eâdem pœnâ dampnabitur, quantâ a
prædecessoribus comitibus, tales malefactores dampnari solent in
Flandriâ.
“15. Quicumque per malum in scabinos manum suam immiserit, si scabini
illud testificentur, LX libras dabit.
“16. Præterea sciant omnes, quod vir de oppido Brugensi, cuiuscumque
forisfacti se reum fecerit, non amplius quam LX libr. amittere poterit,
nisi legitime per scabinos convictus fuerit de raptu, ut dictum est, vel
de latrocinio, vel de falsitate, vel nisi hominem occiderit. Qui verò
occiderit hominem, caput pro capite dabit, et omnia sua in potestate
comitis erunt absque omni contradictione, si de homicidio veritate
scabinorum teneatur.
“17. Nemo infra præfinitos terminos manens infra muros castri gladium
ferat, nisi sit mercator vel alius qui gratiâ negocii sui per castrum
transeat. Si verò castrum intraverit causâ inibi morandi, gladium extra
in suburbio dimittat. Quod si non fecerit, LX solidos et gladium
amittet. Iusticiis vero comitis et ministris earum, quia pacem castri
observare debent, nocte et die infra castrum arma ferre licebit. Viris
etiam Brugensibus gladium portare et reportare licebit, dummodo castro
exeant festinanter. Si quis autem eorum moras faciendo, vel per castrum
vagando, gladium portaverit, LX solid. et gladium amittet.
“18. Si scabini gratiâ emendationis villæ assensu iustitiæ comitis
bannum in pane et vino et cæteris mercibus constituerint, medietas eorum
quæ ex banno provenient, comitis erit, et altera medietas castellani et
oppidi.
“19. Si mercator sive alius homo extraneus ante scabinos iustitiæ causâ
venerit, si illi, de quibus conqueritur presentes sint vel inveniri
possint infra tertium diem vel saltem infra octavum, plenariam ei
scabini iustitiam faciant iuxta legem castri.
“20. Nemini in foro comitis stallos locare licebit, quod si locaverit et
veritate scabinorum super hoc convictus fuerit, LX solidos comiti dabit.
“21. Si aliquis de infracturis castri coram scabinis falsum testimonium
portaverit si scabini illud cognoverint LX libras amittet.
“22. Quando aliquis scabinus decedet, alius ei substituetur electione
Comitis non aliter.
“23. Si scabinus testimonio scabinorum parium suorum de falsitate
convictus fuerit, ipse et omnia sua in potestate Comitis erunt.
“24. Si Scabini a Comite vel a ministro Comitis submoniti, falsum super
aliqua re iudicium fecerint, veritate scabinorum Atrebatensium, sive
aliorum qui eandem legem tenent, comes eos convincere poterit; et si
convicti fuerint, ipsi et omnia sua in potestate comitis erunt. Quoties
verò super huiusmodi falsitate submoniti fuerint, nullatenus
contradicere poterunt, quin diem sibi a Comite praefixum teneant,
ubicumque Comes voluerit in Flandriâ.
“25. De omnibus verò aliis causis ad Comitem pertinentibus, Brugis in
castello vel ante castellum placita tenebunt in praesentia Comitis vel
illius quem loco suo ad iustitiam tenendam instituerit. Instituto autem
ad eius submonitionem de omnibus tanquam Comiti respondebunt, quamdiù in
hoc servitio comitis erit.
“Ad hoc nec scabini nec Brugenses aliquid addere, mutare, vel corrigere
poterunt, nisi per consilium Comitis vel illius quem loco suo ad
iustitiam tenendam instituerit.
V. _Ordonnance du comte Philippe d’Alsace, sur les attributs des Baillis
en Flandre._ Vers 1178.
“Hæc sunt puncta, quæ per universam terram suam Comes observari
præcepit.
Ҥ 1. Primo qui hominem occiderit, caput pro capite dabit.
Ҥ 2. Item baillivus Comitis poterit arrestare hominem qui forefecit
sine Scabinis donec ante Scabinos veniat, et per consilium eorum plegium
accipiat de forisfacto.
Ҥ 3. Item si baillivus volens hominem arrestare, non potuerit et
auxilium vocaverit, qui primus fuerit, et baillivum non adiuverit in
forisfacto erit, sicut Scabini considerabunt; nisi forte ostendere quis
potuerit per Scabinos quod ille qui arrestandus erat, inimicus eius sit
de mortali faidâ; et tunc sine forisfacto erit licet baillivum non
adiuverit ad capiendum suum inimicum.
Ҥ 4. Item baillivus Comitis erit cum Scabinis, qui eligent probos viros
villæ ad faciendas tallias et Assisas, sed cum talliabunt Scabini vel
Iudicia facient, vel inquisitiones veritatis, vel protractiones, non
intererit baillivus: aliis autem consiliis quæ ad utilitatem villæ
pertinebunt, baillivus intererit cum Scabinis, scriptum autem talliæ et
assisæ reddent Scabini baillivo, si postulaverit.
Ҥ 5. Item baillivus accipiet forisfactum adiudicatum Comiti per
Scabinos, ubicumque illud invenerit extra ecclesiam et ubicumque accipi
debet per Scabinos.
“§ 6. Item qui bannitum de pecuniâ receptaverit eâdem lege de pecuniâ
tenebitur quâ bannitus; et si fuerit capite bannitus qui receptatus est,
tunc receptans tenebitur de forisfacto LX lib. Quod si vir domi non
fuerit, et ejus uxor bannitum receptaverit, rediensque vir, tertiâ manu
proborum virorum iurare potuerit: quod bannitum in domam suam receptum
esse nescierit; sine forisfacto remanebit: si autem absentiâ mariti,
uxori prohibitum fuerit per Scabinos, ne bannitum receptet, de cætero
non poterit eum sine forisfacto receptare.
“§ 7. Item de quindenâ in quindenam, habet comes, vel baillivus ex eius
parte, veritatem si voluerit.
Ҥ 8. Item domus diruenda Judicio Scabinorum, post quindenam a scabinis
indultam, quandocunque Comes præceperit, aut baillivus eius, diruetur a
Communia villæ, campana pulsata per Scabinos: et qui ad diruendam domum
illam non venerit, in forisfacto erit, sicut Scabini considerabunt, nisi
talem excusationem habuerit, quæ Scabinis sufficiens videatur.
“§ 9. Item pater non poterit forisfacere domum vel rem filiorum, quæ eis
ex parte matris contingit; nec filii poterunt forisfacere rem vel domum
patris, quæ ex parte patris venit.
Ҥ 10. Item si homo per Scabinos domum suam sine scampo invadiaverit,
eam forisfacere non poterit, nisi salvo catallo eius, qui domum illam
vadet in vadio.
“§ 11. Item fugitivus de aliquâ villâ pro debito, si in aliâ villâ
inventus fuerit, arrestabitur, et ad villam, de quâ fugerat, reducetur,
et iudicium Scabinorum illius villæ subire cogetur.
“§ 12. Item si quis vulneratus fuerit, et videatur Scabinis’ quod non
sit vulneratus ad mortem, et postea de illo vulnere mortuus fuerit,
Scabini non erunt in forisfacto contra Comitem, qui minorem plegiaturam
acceperunt de eo qui cum vulneravit, quam si mortaliter fuisset
vulneratus.”
------------------
The following charters of the French communes are taken from M.
Thierry’s Lettres sur l’Histoire de France.
I. _Charte de Beauvais._—“Tous les hommes domiciliés dans l’enceinte du
mur de ville et dans les faubourgs, de quelque seigneur que relève le
terrain où ils habitent, prêteront serment à la commune. Dans toute
l’étendue de la ville, chacun prêtera secours aux autres, loyalement et
selon son pouvoir.
“Treize pairs seront élus par la commune, entre lesquels, d’après le
vote des autres pairs et de tous ceux qui auront juré la commune, un ou
deux seront créés majeurs.
“Le majeur et les pairs jureront de ne favoriser personne de la commune
pour cause d’amitié, de ne léser personne pour cause d’inimitié, et de
donner en toute chose, selon leur pouvoir, une décision équitable. Tous
les autres jureront d’obéir et de prêter main forte aux décisions du
majeur et des pairs[1036].
Footnote 1036:
Ann. de Noyon, t. ii. p. 805.
Turbulenta conjuratio facta communionis (epistolæ Ivonis Carnotensis
episcopi, apud script. rer. franc., t. xv. p. 105).
Cum primùm communia acquisita fuit, omnes Viromandiæ pares, et omnes
clerici, salvo ordine suo, omnesque milites, salvâ fidelitate comitis,
firmiter tenendam juraverunt. (Recueil des ordonnances des rois de
France, t. xi. p. 270.)
“Quiconque aura forfait envers un homme qui aura juré cette commune, le
majeur et les pairs, si plainte leur en est faite, feront justice du
corps et des biens du coupable.
“Si le coupable se réfugie dans quelque château fort, le majeur et les
pairs de la commune parleront sur cela au seigneur du château ou à celui
qui sera en son lieu; et si, à leur avis, satisfaction leur est faite de
l’ennemi de la commune, ce sera assez; mais si le seigneur refuse
satisfaction, ils se feront justice à eux-mêmes sur ses hommes.
“Si quelque marchand étranger vient à Beauvais pour le marché, et que
quelqu’un lui fasse tort ou injure dans les limites de la banlieue; si
plainte en est faite au majeur et aux pairs, et que le marchand puisse
trouver son malfaiteur dans la ville, la majeur et les pairs en feront
justice, à moins que le marchand ne soit un des ennemis de la commune.
“Nul homme de la commune ne devra prêter ni créancer son argent aux
ennemis de la commune tant qu’il y aura guerre avec eux, car s’il le
fait il sera parjure; et si quelqu’un est convaincu de leur avoir prêté
ou créance quoique ce soit, justice sera faite de lui, selon que le
majeur et les pairs en décideront.
“S’il arrive que le corps des bourgeois marche hors de la ville contre
ses ennemis, nul le parlamentera avec eux si ce n’est avec licence du
majeur et des pairs.
“Si quelqu’un de la commune a confié son argent à quelqu’un de la ville,
et que celui auquel l’argent aura été confié se réfugie dans quelque
château fort, le seigneur du château, en ayant reçu plainte, ou rendra
l’argent ou chassera le débiteur de son château; et s’il ne fait ni
l’une ni l’autre de ces choses, justice sera faite sur les hommes de ce
château.
“Si quelqu’un enlève de l’argent à un homme de la commune et se réfugie
dans quelque château fort, justice sera faite sur lui si on peut le
recontrer, ou sur les hommes et les biens du seigneur du château, à
moins que l’argent ne soit rendu.
“S’il arrive que quelqu’un de la commune ait acheté quelque héritage et
l’ait tenu pendant l’an et jour, et si quelqu’un vient ensuite réclamer
et demander le rachat, il ne lui sera point fait de réponse, mais
l’acheteur demeurera en paix.
“Pour aucune cause la présente charte ne sera portée hors de la ville.”
II. _Charter of the Commune of Laon._—“Nul ne pourra se saisir d’aucun
homme, soit libre, soit serf, sans le ministère de la justice.
“Si quelqu’un a, de quelque manière que ce soit, fait tort à un autre,
soit clerc, soit chevalier, soit marchand indigène ou étranger, et que
celui qui a fait le tort soit de la ville, il sera sommé de se présenter
en justice par-devant le majeur et les jurés, pour se justifier ou faire
amende; mais s’il se refuse à faire réparation, il sera exclu de la
ville avec tous ceux de sa famille. Si les propriétés du délinquant en
terres ou en vignes sont situées hors du territoire de la ville, le
majeur et les jurés réclameront justice contre lui, de la part du
seigneur dans le ressort duquel ses biens seront situés; mais si l’on
n’obtient pas justice de ce seigneur, les jurés pourront faire dévaster
les propriétés du coupable. Si le coupable n’est pas de la ville,
l’affaire sera portée devant la cour del’évêque, et si, dans le délai do
cinq jours, la forfaiture n’est pas reparée, le majeur et les jurés en
tireront selon leur pouvoir.
“En matière capitale, la plainte doit d’abord être portée devant le
seigneur justicier dans le ressort duquel aura été pris le coupable, ou
devant son bailli s’il est absent; et si le plaignant ne peut obtenir
justice ni de l’un ni de l’autre, il s’adressera aux jurés.
“Les censitaires ne paieront à leur seigneur d’autre cens que celui
qu’ils le doivent par tête. S’ils ne le paient pas au temps marqué, ils
seront punis selon la loi qui les régit, mais n’accorderont rien en sus
à leur seigneur que de leur propre volonté.
“Les hommes de la commune pourront prendre pour femmes les filles des
vassaux ou des serfs de quelque seigneur que ce soit, à l’exception des
seigneuries et des églises qui font partie de cet commune. Dans les
familles de ces dernières ils ne pourront prendre des épouses sans le
consentement du seigneur.
“Aucun étranger censitaire des églises ou des chevaliers de la ville ne
sera compris dans la commune que du consentement de son seigneur.
“Quiconque sera reçu dans cet commune, bâtira une maison dans le délai
d’un an, ou achetera des vignes, ou apportera dans la ville assez
d’effets mobiliers pour que justice puisse être faite, s’il y a quelque
plainte contre lui. Les main-mortes sont entièrement abolies. Les
tailles seront réparties de manière que tout homme devant taille paie
seulement quatre deniers à chaque terme et rien de plus, à moins qu’il
n’ait une terre devant taille, à laquelle il tienne assez pour consentir
à payer la taille.”
III. _Charter of the Commune of Amiens._—“Chacun gardera fidélité à son
juré et lui prêtera secours et conseil en tout ce qui est juste.
“Si quelqu’un viole sciemment les constitutions de la commune et qu’il
en soit convaincu, la commune, si elle le peut, démolira sa maison et ne
lui permettra point d’habiter dans ses limites jusqu’à ce qu’il ait
donné satisfaction.
“Quiconque aura sciemment reçu dans sa maison un ennemi de la commune et
aura communiqué avec lui, soit en vendant et achetant, soit en buvant et
mangeant, soit en lui prêtant un secours quelconque, ou lui aura donné
aide et conseil contre le commune, sera coupable de lèse-commune, et, à
moins qu’il ne donne promptement satisfaction en justice, la commune, si
elle le peut, démolira sa maison.
“Quiconque aura tenu devant témoin des propos injurieux pour la commune,
si la commune en est informée, et que l’inculpé refuse de répondre en
justice, la commune, si elle le peut, démolira sa maison et ne lui
permettra pas d’habiter dans ses limites jusqu’à ce qu’il ait donné
satisfaction.
“Si quelqu’un attaque de paroles injurieuses le majeur dans l’exercice
de sa juridiction, sa maison sera démolie, ou il paiera rançon pour sa
maison en la miséricorde des juges.
“Que nul n’ait la hardiesse de vexer au passage, dans la banlieue de la
cité, les personnes domiciliées dans la commune, ou les marchands qui
viennent à la ville pour y vendre leurs denrées. Si quelqu’un ose le
faire, il sera réputé violateur de la commune et justice sera faite sur
sa personne ou sur ses biens.
“Si un membre de la commune enlève quelque chose à l’un de ses jurés, il
sera sommé par le maire et les échevins de comparaître en présence de la
commune, et fera réparation suivant l’arrêt des échevins.
“Si le vol a été commis par quelqu’un qui ne soit pas de la commune, et
que cet homme ait refusé de comparaître en justice dans les limites de
la banlieue, la commune, après l’avoir notifié aux gens du château où le
coupable a son domicile, le saisira, si elle le peut, lui ou quelque
chose qui lui appartienne, et le retiendra jusqu’à ce qu’il ait fait
réparation.
“Quiconque aura blessé avec armes un de ses jurés, à moins qu’il ne se
justifie par témoins et par le serment, perdra le poing ou paiera neuf
livres, six pour les fortifications de la ville et de la commune, et
trois pour la rançon de son poing; mais s’il est incapable de payer, il
abandonnera son poing à la miséricorde de la commune.
“Si un homme, qui n’est pas de la commune, frappe ou blesse quelqu’un de
la commune, et refuse de comparaître en jugement, la commune, si elle le
peut, démolira sa maison; et si elle parvient à le saisir, justice sera
faite de lui par-devant le majeur et les échevins.
“Quiconque aura donné à l’un de ses jurés les noms de serf, récréant,
traître ou fripon, paiera vingt sous d’amende.
“Si quelque membre de la commune a sciemment acheté ou vendu quelque
article provenant de pillage, il le perdra et sera tenu de le restituer
aux dépouillés, à moins queux-mêmes ou leurs seigneurs n’aient forfait
en quelque chose contre la commune.
“Dans les limites de la commune, on n’admettra aucun champion gagé au
combat contre l’un de ses membres.
“En toute espèce de cause, l’accusateur, l’accusé et les témoins
s’expliqueront, s’ils le veulent, par avocat.
“Tous ces articles, ainsi que les ordonnances du majeur et de la
commune, n’ont force de loi que de juré à juré: il n’y a pas égalité en
justice entre le juré et le non-juré.”
IV. _Charter of the Commune of Soissons._—“Tous les hommes habitant dans
l’enceinte des murs de la ville de Soissons et en dehors dans le
faubourg, sur quelque seigneurie qu’ils demeurent, jureront la commune:
si quelqu’un s’y refuse, ceux qui l’auront jurée feront justice de sa
maison et de son argent.
“Dans les limites de la commune, tous les hommes s’aideront
mutuellement, selon leur pouvoir, et ne souffriront en nulle manière que
qui que ce soit enlève quelque chose ou fasse payer des tailles à l’un
d’entre eux.
“Quand la cloche sonnera pour assembler la commune, si quelqu’un ne se
rend pas à l’assemblée, il payera douze deniers d’amende.
“Si quelqu’un de la commune a forfait en quelque chose, et refuse de
donner satisfaction devant les jurés, les hommes de la commune en feront
justice.
“Les membres de cette commune prendront pour épouses les femmes qu’ils
voudront, après en avoir demandé la permission aux seigneurs dont ils
relèvent; mais, si les seigneurs s’y refusaient, et que, sans l’aveu du
sien, quelqu’un prît une femme relevant d’une autre seigneurie, l’amende
qu’il paierait dans ce cas, sur la plainte de son seigneur, serait de
cinq sols seulement.
“Si un étranger apporte son pain ou son vin dans la ville pour les y
mettre en sûreté, et qu’ensuite un différend survienne entre son
seigneur et les hommes de cette commune, il aura quinze jours pour
vendre son pain et son vin dans la ville et emporter l’argent, à moins
qu’il n’ait forfait ou ne soit complice de quelque forfaiture.
“Si l’évêque de Soissons amène par mégarde dans la ville un homme qui
ait forfait envers un membre de cette commune, après qu’on lui aura
remontré que c’est l’un des ennemis de la commune, il pourra l’emmener
cette fois; mais ne le ramènera en aucune manière, si ce n’est avec
l’aveu de ceux qui ont charge de maintenir la commune.
“Toute forfaiture, hormis l’infraction de commune et la vieille haine,
sera punie d’une amende de cinq sous.”
It would be easy to add other examples of these early covenants between
the towns and their seigneurs: but enough seems to have been said, to
illustrate the line of argument adopted in the text. There is no single
point in all mediæval history of more importance than the manner in
which the towns assumed their municipal form; and none in which the
gradual progress of the popular liberties can be more securely traced.
But all these compromises imply a long apprenticeship to freedom before
the “master’s” dignity was attained: and great is the debt of gratitude
we owe to those whose sufferings and labour have enabled us to
understand and to record their struggles.
APPENDIX B.
TITHE.
The importance of this subject requires a full statement of details: the
following are all the passages in the Anglosaxon law which have
reference to this impost.
“I Æðelstán the king, with the counsel of Wulfhelm, archbishop, and of
my other bishops, make known to the reeves in each town, and beseech
you, in God’s name, and by all his saints, and also by my friendship,
that ye first of my own goods render the tithes both of live stock and
of the year’s increase, even as they may most justly be either measured
or counted or weighed out; and let the bishops then do the like from
their own property, and my ealdormen and reeves the same. And I will,
that the bishop and the reeves command it to all who are bound to obey
them, so that it be done at the right term. Let us bear in mind how
Jacob the Patriarch spoke: ‘Decimas et hostias pacificas offeram tibi;’
and how Moses spake in God’s law: ‘Decimas et primitias non tardabis
offerre Domino.’ It is for us to reflect how awfully it is declared in
the books: if we will not render the tithes to God, that he will take
from us the nine parts when we least expect; and, moreover, we have the
sin in addition thereto.” Æðelst. i. Thorpe, i. 195.
There is a varying copy of this circular, or whatever it is, coinciding
as to the matter, but differing widely in the words. Thorpe, i. 195. The
nature of the sanction is obvious: it is the old, unjustifiable
application of the Jewish practice, which fraud or ignorance had made
generally current in Europe. The tithe mentioned by Æðelstán is the
prædial tithe, or that of increase of the fruits of the earth, and
increase of the young of cattle.
The next passage is in the law of Eádmund, about 940. He says: “Tithe we
enjoin to every Christian man on his christendom, and church-shot, and
Rome-fee and plough-alms. And if any one will not do it, be he
excommunicate.” Thorpe, i. 244.
“Let every tithe be paid to the old minster to which the district
belongs; and let it be so paid both from a thane’s _inland_ and from
_geneátland_, as the plough traverses it. But if there be any thane who
on his bookland has a church, at which there is a burial-place, let him
give the third part of his own tithe to his church. If any one have a
church at which there is not a burial-place, then of the nine parts let
him give his priest what he will.... And let tithe of every young be
paid by Pentecost, and of the fruits of the earth by the equinox ... and
if any one will not pay the tithe, as we have ordained, let the king’s
reeve go thereto, and the bishop’s, and the mass-priest of the minster,
and take by force a tenth part for the minster whereunto it is due; and
let them assign to him the ninth part; and let the eight parts be
divided into two, and let the landlord seize half, the bishop half, be
it a king’s man or a thane’s.” Eádg. i. § 1, 2, 3. Thorpe, i. 262. Cnut,
i. § 8. 11. Thorpe, i. 366.
“This writing manifests how Eádgár the king was deliberating what might
be a remedy for the pestilence which greatly afflicted and decreased his
people, far and wide throughout his realm. And first of all it seemed to
him and his Witan that such a misfortune had been merited by sin, and by
contempt of God’s commandments, and most of all by the diminution of
that _need-gafol_ (necessary tax or rent or recognitory service) which
men ought to render to God in their tithes. He looked upon and
considered the divine usage in the same light as the human. If a geneát
neglect his lord’s _gafol_, and do not pay it at the appointed time, it
may be expected, if the lord be merciful, that he will grant forgiveness
of the neglect, and accept the _gafol_ without inflicting a further
penalty. But if the lord, by his messengers, frequently remind him of
his _gafol_, and he be obdurate and devise to resist payment, it is to
be expected that the lord’s anger will so greatly increase, that he will
grant his debtor neither life nor goods. Thus is it to be expected that
our Lord will do, through the audacity with which the people have
resisted the frequent admonition of their teachers, respecting the
_need-gafol_ of our Lord, namely our tithes and church-shots. Now I and
the archbishop command that ye anger not God, nor earn either sudden
death in this world, nor a future and eternal death in hell, by any
diminution of God’s rights; but that rich and poor alike, who have any
tilth, joyfully and ungrudgingly yield his tithes to God, according to
the ordinance of the witan at Andover, which they have now confirmed
with their pledges at Wihtbordesstán. And I command my reeves, on pain
of losing my friendship and all they own, to punish all that will not
make this payment, or by any remissness break the pledge of my witan, as
the aforesaid ordinance directs: and of such punishment let there be no
remission, if he be so wretched as either to diminish what is God’s to
his own soul’s perdition, or in the insolence of his mood to account
them of less importance than what he reckoneth as his own: for that is
much more his own which lasteth to all eternity, if he would do it
without grudging and with perfect gladness. Now it is my will that these
divine rights stand alike all over my realm, and that the servants of
God who receive the moneys which we give to God, live a pure life: that
so, through their purity, they may intercede for us with God; and that I
and my thanes direct our priests to that which the shepherds of our
soul’s teach us, that is, our bishops, whom we ought never to disobey in
any of those things which they declare to us in God’s behalf; so that
through the obedience with which we obey them for God’s sake, we may
merit that eternal life for which they fit us by their doctrine and the
example of their good works.” Eádgár, Suppl. Thorpe, i. 270 _seq._ Such
are the views of Eádgár under the influence of Dúnstán, Æðelwold and
Oswald.
“And let God’s dues be willingly paid every year; that is, plough-alms
fifteen days after Easter, the tithe of young by Pentecost, and of the
fruits of the earth by Allhallows’ Mass, and Rome-fee by St. Peter’s
mass, and lightshot thrice a year.” Æðelr. v. § 11; vi. § 17; ix. § 9.
Cnut, i. § 8.
“Et ut detur de omni caruca denarius vel denarium valens, et omnis qui
familiam habet, efficiat ut omnis hirmannus suus det unum denarium; quod
si non habeat, det dominus eius pro eo. Et omnino Thaynus decimet totum
quicquid habet.” Æðelr. viii. § 1. Thorpe, i. 336.
“Et praecipimus, ut omnis homo, super dilectionem Dei et omnium
sanctorum, det Cyricsceattum et rectam decimam suam, sicut in diebus
antecessorum nostrorum stetit, quando melius stetit; hoc est, sicut
aratrum peragrabit decimam aeram. Et omnis consuetudo reddatur super
amicitiam Dei ad matrem nostram aecclesiam cui adiacet. Et nemo auferat
Deo quod ad Deum pertinet, et praedecessores nostri concesserunt.”
Æðelr. viii. § 4. Thorpe, i. 338.
“And with respect to tithe, the king and his witan have chosen and
decreed, as right it is, that one third part of the tithe which belongs
to the church, go to the reparation of the church, and a second part to
God’s servants there; the third part to God’s poor and needy men in
thraldom.” Æðelr. ix. § 6. Thorpe, i. 342.
“And be it known to every Christian man that he pay to the Lord his
tithe justly, ever as the plough traverses the tenth field, on peril of
God’s mercy, and of the full penalty, which king Eádgár decreed; that
is; If any one will not justly pay the tithe, then let the king’s reeve
go, and the mass-priest of the minster or the landlord, and the bishop’s
reeve, and take by force the tenth part for the minster to which it is
due, and assign to him the ninth part: and let the remaining eight parts
be divided into two; and let the landlord seize half, and the bishop
half, be it a king’s man or a thane’s.” Æðelr. ix. § 7, 8. Thorpe, i.
342. Cnut, i. § 8. Thorpe, i. 366. Leg. Hen. I. xi. § 2. Thorpe, i. 520.
“De omni annona decima garba sanctae aecclesiae reddenda est. Si quis
gregem equarum habuerit, pullum decimum reddat; qui unam solam vel duas,
de singulis pullis singulos denarios. Qui vaccas plures habuerit,
vitulum decimum; qui unam vel duas, de singulis obolos singulos. Et si
de eis caseum fecerit, caseum decimum, vel lac decima die. Agnum
decimum, vellus decimum, caseum decimum, butirum decimum, porcellum
decimum. De apibus, secundum quod sibi per annum inde profecerit.
Quinetiam de boscis et pratis, aquis, molendinis, parcis, vivariis,
piscariis, virgultis, ortis, negotiationibus, et de omnibus similiter
rebus quas dederit Dominus, decima reddenda est; et qui eam detinuerit,
per iusticiam sanctae aecclesiae et regis, si necesse fuerit, ad
redditionem cogatur. Haec praedicavit sanctus Augustinus, et haec
concessa sunt a rege, et confirmata a baronibus et populis: sed postea,
instigante diabolo, ea plures detinuerunt, et sacerdotes qui divites
erant non multum curiosi erant ad perquirendas eas, quia in multis locis
sunt modo iiii vel iii aecclesiae, ubi tunc temporis non erat nisi una;
et sic inceperunt minui.” Eádw. Conf. § vii. viii.
Such are all the passages in the Anglosaxon Laws, directing the levy and
distribution of the tithe.
APPENDIX C.
TOWNS.
The strict meaning of _burh_, appears to be _fortified place_ or
_stronghold_. It can therefore be applied to a single house or castle,
as well as to a town. There is a softer form _byrig_, which in the sense
of a town can hardly be distinguished from _burh_, but which, as far as
I know, is never used to denote a single house or castle. Rome and
Florence, and in general all large towns, are called Burh or Byrig. This
is the widest term.
_Port_ strictly means an enclosed place, for sale and purchase, a
market: for “Portus est conclusus locus, quo importantur merces, et inde
exportantur. Est et statio conclusa et munita.” (Thorpe, i. p. 158.)
_Wíc_ is originally _vicus_, a vill or village. It is strictly used to
denote the country-houses of communities, kings or bishops.
_Ceaster_ seems universally derived from _castrum_, and denotes a place
where there has been a Roman station. Now every one of these conditions
may concur in one single place, and we accordingly find much looseness
in the use of the terms: thus,
London is called Lundenwíc[1037], Hhoðh. § 16. Chron. 604: but
Lundenburh or Lundenbyrig, Chron. 457, 872, 886, 896, 910, 994, 1009,
1013, 1016, 1052. And it was also a port, for we find its geréfa, a
port-geréfa. Again York, sometimes Eoferwíc, sometimes Eoferwíc-ceaster
(Chron. 971) is also said to be a burh, Chron. 1066. Dovor is called a
burh, Chron. 1048; but a port, Chron. 1052. So again Hereford, in Chron.
1055, 1056, is called a port, but in Chron. 1055 also a burh. Nor do the
Latin chroniclers help us out of the difficulty; on the contrary, they
continually use the words _oppidum_, _civitas_, _urbs_ and even _arx_ to
denote the same place.
-----
Footnote 1037:
“Forum rerum venalium Lundenwíc.” Vit. Bonif. Pertz, Mon. ii. 338.
-----
The Saxon Chronicle mentions the undernamed cities:—
Ægeles byrig, now Aylesbury in Bucks. Chron. Sax. 571, 921.
Acemannes ceaster or Baðan byrig, often called also Æt baðum or Æt hátum
baðum, the Aquae Solis of the Romans and now Bath in Somerset. This town
in the year 577 was taken from the British. The Chronicle calls it
Baðanceaster: see also Chron. 973.
Ambresbyrig, now Amesbury, Wilts. Chron. 995.
Andredesceaster. Anderida, sacked by Ælli. Chron. 495. Most probably
near the site of the present Pevensey: see a very satisfactory paper by
Mr. Hussey, Archæol. Journal, No. 15, Sept. 1847.
Baddanbyrig, now Badbury, Dorset. Chron. 901.
Badecanwyl, now Bakewell, Derby, fortified by Eádweard. Chron. 923.
Florence says he built and garrisoned a town there: “urbem construxit,
et in illa milites robustos posuit.” an. 921.
Banesingtún, now Bensington, Oxf. Chron. 571, 777.
Bebbanburh, now Bamborough in Northumberland. This place, we are told,
was first surrounded with a hedge, and afterwards with a wall. Chron.
642, 926, 993. Florence calls it “urbs regia Bebbanbirig.” an. 926.
Bedanford, now Bedford. There was a burh here which Eádweard took in
919: he then built a second burh upon the other side of the Ouse. Chron.
919. Florence calls it “urbem.” an. 916.
Beranbyrig. Chron. 556.
Bremesbyrig. At this place Æðelflǽd built a burh. Chron. 910. Florence
says “urbem.” an. 911: perhaps Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, the Æt
Bremesgráfum of the Cod. Dipl. Nos. 183, 186.
Brunanburh, Brunanbyrig, and sometimes Brunanfeld: the site of this
place is unknown, but here Æðelstán and Eádmund defeated the Scots.
Chron. 937.
Brycgnorð, Bridgenorth, Salop. Here Æðelflǽd built a burh. Chron. 912:
“arcem munitam.” Flor. an. 913.
Bucingahám, now Buckingham. Here Eádweard built two burhs, one on each
side of the Ouse. Chron. 918. Florence calls them “munitiones.” an. 915.
Cantwarabyrig, the city of Canterbury. Dorobernia, ciuitas
Doruuernensis, the metropolis of Æðelberht’s kingdom in 597. Beda, H. E.
lib. i. c. 25. In the year 1011 Canterbury was sufficiently fortified to
hold out for twenty days against the Danish army which had overrun all
the eastern and midland counties, and was then only entered by
treachery. Flor. Wig. an. 1011. I have already noticed both king’s
reeves and port-reeves, the ingang burhware and cnihta gyld of
Canterbury. There can be little doubt that king, archbishop, abbot and
corporation had all separate jurisdictions and rights in Canterbury: see
Chron. 633, 655, 995, 1009, 1011.
Cirenceaster, now Cirencester in Gloucestershire, the ancient
Durocornovum. Chron. 577, 628.
Cissanceaster, now Chichester, the Roman Regnum. Chron. 895.
Cledemúða. Here Eádweard built a burh. Chron. 921.
Colnceaster, now Colchester in Essex, the first Roman Colonia, destroyed
by Boadicea. In 921 Colchester was sacked by Eádweard’s forces, and
taken from the Danes, some of whom escaped over the _wall_. In the same
year Eádweard repaired and fortified it. Chron. 921. “murum illius
redintegravit, virosque in ea bellicosos cum stipendio posuit.” Flor.
918.
Coludesburh, Coldingham. Chron. 679.
Cyppanham, Chippenham, Wilts. Chron. 878.
Cyricbyrig, a city built by Æðelflǽd. Flor. 916. Cherbury.
Deóraby, Derby, one of the Five Burgs taken by Æðelflǽd from the Danes.
Chron. 917, 941. A city with gates. Flor. 918. “civitas.” Flor. 942.
Dofera, Dover in Kent. Chron. 1048, 1052. There was a fortified castle
on the cliff, which in 1051 was seized by the people of Eustace, count
of Boulogne, against the town. Flor. Wig. 1051.
Dorceceaster, Dorchester, Oxon. Chron. 954, 971. For some time a
bishop’s see, first for Wessex, which was afterwards removed to
Winchester: afterwards for Leicester.
Dorceceaster, Dornwaraceaster, Dorchester, Dorset. Chron. 635, 636, 639.
Eádesbyrig, a place where Æðelflǽd built a burh. Chron. 914. Florence
says a town. an. 915. Eddisbury, Cheshire?
Eligbyrig, Ely in Cambridgeshire. Chron. 1036.
Egonesham, now Eynesham, Oxon. Chron. 571.
Eoforwíc, Eoforwíc ceaster, now York; Kair Ebrauc, Eboracum; the seat of
an archbishop, a bishop, and again an archbishop. It seems to have been
always a considerable and important town. In the tenth century it was
one of the seven confederated burgs, which Æðelflǽd reduced. The
strength however which we should be inclined to look for in a city,
which once boasted the name of _altera Roma_, is hardly consistent with
Asser’s account of it. Describing the place in the year 867, he says:
“Praedictus Paganorum exercitus ... ad Eboracum ciuitatem migravit, quae
in aquilonari ripa Humbrensis fluminis[1038] sita est.” After stating
that Ælla and Osberht, the pretenders to the Northumbrian crown, became
reconciled in presence of the common danger, he continues: “Osbyrht et
Ælla, adunatis viribus, congregatoque exercitu Eboracum oppidum adeunt,
quibus advenientibus Pagani confestim fugam arripiunt, et intra urbis
moenia se defendere procurant: quorum fugam et pavorem Christiani
cernentes, etiam intra urbis moenia persequi, et murum frangere
instituunt: quod et fecerunt, non enim tunc adhuc illa civitas firmos et
stabilitos muros illis temporibus habebat. Cumque Christiani murum, ut
proposuerant, fregissent, etc.[1039]” We may infer from Asser himself
that the Saxon mode of fortification. was not strong: speaking of a
place in Devonshire, called Cynuit (which he describes as _arx_), he
says: “Cum Pagani arcem imparatam atque omnino immunitam, nisi quod
moenia nostro more erecta solummodo haberet, cernerent, non enim
effringere moliebantur, quia et ille locus situ terrarum tutissimus est
ab omni parte, nisi ab orientali, sicut nos ipsi vidimus, obsidere eam
coeperunt[1040].” York however continued to be an important town. It was
retaken by Æðelflǽd who subdued the Danes there; and again by Eádred in
950. At this time it appears to have been principally ruled by its
archbishop Wulfstán. For York, see Chron. 971, 1066, etc.
-----
Footnote 1038:
He clearly considers the northern branch of the Humber, which we now
call the Ouse, to be the continuation of the river.
Footnote 1039:
Vit. Ælfr. an. 867.
Footnote 1040:
Vit. Ælfr. an. 878.
-----
Exanceaster, now Exeter, the Isca Damnoniorum or Uxella, of the Romans.
Chron. 876, 894, 1003. As the Saxon arms advanced westward, Exeter
became for a time the frontier town and market between the British and
the men of Wessex: in the beginning of the tenth century there appears
to have been a mixed population. But at that period[1041] Æðelstán
expelled the British inhabitants, and fortified the town: he drove the
Cornwealhas over the Tamar, and made that their boundary, as he had the
Wye for the Bretwealas. William of Malmesbury tells us: “Illos (i. e.
Cornewalenses) impigre adorsus, ab Excestra, quam ad id temporis aequo
cum Anglis iure inhabitarunt, cedere compulit: terminum provinciae suae
citra Tambram fluvium constituens, sicut aquilonalibus Britannis amnem
Waiam limitem posuerat. Urbem igitur illam, quam contaminatae gentis
repurgio defaecaverat, turribus munivit, muro ex quadratis lapidibus
cinxit[1042]. Et licet solum illud, ieiunum et squalidum, vix steriles
avenas, et plerumque folliculum inanem sine grano producat, tamen pro
civitatis magnificentia, et incolarum opulentia, tum etiam convenarum
frequentia, omne ibi adeo abundat mercimonium, ut nihil frustra
desideres quod humano usui conducibile existimes[1043].” Thus situated,
about ten miles from the sea, Exanceaster could not fail to become an
important commercial station; the Exa being navigable for ships of
considerable burthen, till in 1284, Hugh Courtenay interrupted the
traffic, by building a weir and quay at Topsham. It is probable that
Æðelstán placed his own geréfa in the city. But in the year 1003, queen
Emme Ælfgyfu seems to have been its lady; for it is recorded that
through the treachery of a Frenchman Hugo, whom she had made her reeve
there, the Danes under Svein sacked and destroyed the city, taking great
plunder[1044]. It was afterwards restored by Cnut; but appears to have
been still attached to the queens of England, for after the conquest we
find it holding out against William, under Gýð, the mother of Harald.
-----
Footnote 1041:
Probably in 926.
Footnote 1042:
The author of the Gesta Stephani, a contemporary of Malmesbury,
declares that the city was “vetustissimo Cæsarum opere murata:” and
that its castle was “muro inexpugnabili obseptum, turribus Cæsarianis
incisili calce confectis firmatum,” p. 21.
Footnote 1043:
Will. Malm. Gest. Reg. lib. ii. § 134 (Hardy’s Ed. vol. i. p. 214);
see also Gest. Pontif. lib. ii. § 95 (Hamilton’s Ed. p. 201).
Footnote 1044:
Chron. Sax. 1003.
-----
Exanmúða, now Exmouth. Chron. 1001.
Genisburuh, now Gainsborough. Chron. 1013, 1014.
Glæstingaburh or Glæstingabyrig, now Glastonbury, Som. Urbs Glastoniae,
Chron. 688, 943.
Gleawanceaster, now Gloucester; Kair glou, and the Roman Glevum. Urbs
Gloverniae, Glocestriae. A fortified city of Mercia. Chron. 577, 918.
Hæstingas, now Hastings in Kent. A fortification, and probably at one
time the town of a tribe so called. Chron. 1066. It was reduced by Offa,
and probably ruined in the Danish wars of Ælfred and Æðelred.
Hagustaldes hám or Hagstealdeshám, now Hexham in Northumbria: the
ancient seat of a bishopric. Chron. 685.
Hamtún, now Southampton. Chron. 837.
Hamtún, now Northampton, _quod vide_.
Heanbyrig, now Hanbury in Worcest. Chron. 675.
Heortford, now Hertford. Chron. 913. _urbs_. Flor. 913.
Hereford, now Hereford. Chron. 918, 1055, 1066.
Hrofesceaster, Durocobrevis, Hrofesbreta, now Rochester; a bishop’s see
for West Kent, probably once the capital of the West Kentish kingdom: a
strong fortress. Chron. 604, 616, 633, 644. Asser. 884.
Huntena tún, now Huntingdon. Originally, as its name implies, a town or
enclosed dwelling of hunters; but in process of time a city. Chron. 921.
_civitas_. Flor. 918.
Judanbyrig, perhaps Jedburgh. Chron. 952.
Legaceaster, Kairlegeon, now Chester, a Roman city. Chron. 607;
deserted, Chron. 894; restored, Chron. 907. Flor. 908.
Legraceaster, now Leicester. Chron. 918, 941, 943. _civitas_. Flor. 942.
Lindicoln, the ancient Lindum, now Lincoln, the capital city of the
Lindissi; a bishop’s see: then one of the five or seven burhs. Chron.
941. _civitas_. Flor. 942.
Lundenbyrig, Lundenwíc, Londinium, now London. The principal city of the
Cantii; then of the Trinobantes; Kair Lunden, Troynovant. Locally in
Essex, but usually subject to Mercian sovereignty. Towards the time of
the conquest more frequently the residence of the Saxon kings, and scene
of their witena gemóts. A strongly fortified city with a fortified
bridge over the Thames connecting it with Southwark, apparently its Tête
de pont. Chron. 457, 604, 872, 886, 896, 910, 994, 1009, 1013, 1016,
1052.
Lygeanbyrig, now Leighton buzzard. Chron. 571.
Maidulfi urbs, Meldumesbyrig, now Malmesbury in Wilts. Flor. 940.
Mameceaster, now Manchester: “urbem restaurarent, et in ea fortes
milites collocarent.” Flor. 920.
Mealdun, now Maldon in Essex. Chron. 920, 921. _urbs_; rebuilt and
garrisoned by Eádweard. Flor. 917.
Medeshámstede: afterwards Burh, and from its wealth Gyldenburh: now
Peterborough. Chron. 913.
Merantún, now Merton in Oxfordshire. Chron. 755.
Middeltún, Middleton in Essex, a fortress built by Hæsten the Dane.
Chron. 893.
Norðhamtún, more frequently Hámtún only, now Northampton: a town or
“Port,” burnt by the Danes under Svein. Chron. 1010.
Norðwíc, now Norwich, a burh, burned by Svein. Chron. 1004.
Oxnaford, Oxford: a burh in Mercia, taken into his own hands by Eádweard
on the death of Æðelflǽd. The burh was burnt by Svein. Chron. 1009.
Possentesbyrig. Chron. 661. ? Pontesbury, co. Salop.
Rædingas, now Reading: a royal vill, but, as many or all probably were,
fortified. Asser. 871.
Runcofa, now Runcorn, _urbs_, Flor. Wig. 916.
Sandwíc, now Sandwich, a royal vill, and harbour, whose tolls belonged
to Canterbury. Chron. 851.
Scaroburh, now Salisbury, the ancient Kairkaradek. Chron. 552.
Scærgeat, now Scargate, built by Æðelflǽd. Chron. 912; _arx munita_,
Flor. Wig. 913.
Sceaftesbyrig, Shaftsbury, the seat of a nunnery founded by Ælfred.
Chron. 980, 982.
Sceobyrig, now Shoebury in Essex; a fort was built there in 894 by the
Danes. Chron. 894.
Seletún, perhaps Silton in Yorkshire. Chron. 780.
Snotingahám, now Nottingham: the British Tinguobauc,or _urbs
speluncarum_. Asser. 868; Chron. 868, 922, 923, 941. There were two
towns here, one on each side the river. Flor. Wig. 919, 921; _civitas_,
Flor. Wig. 942.
Soccabyrig, probably Sockburn in Durham. Chron. 780.
Stæfford, now Stafford, a vill of the Mercian kings, fortified by
Æðelflǽd. Chron. 913; _arx_, Flor. Wig. 914.
Stamford in Lincolnshire. Chron. 922, 941; _arx_ and _civitas_, Flor.
Wig. 919, 942.
Sumertún, now Somerton in Oxfordshire, taken by Æðelbald of Mercia from
Wessex. Chron. 733.
Súðbyrig, now Sudbury in Suffolk. Chron. 797.
Swanawíc, probably Swanwick, Hants. Chron. 877.
Temesford, Tempsford in Bedfordshire, a Danish fortress and town. Chron.
921.
Tofeceaster, Towchester in Northampton. Chron. 921; _civitas_, Flor.
Wig. 918; walled with stone, Flor. ibid.
Tomaworðig, now Tamworth in Staffordshire; a favourite residence of the
Mercian kings. Chron. 913, 922; fortified by Æðelflǽd; _urbs_, Flor.
Wig. 914.
Wæringawíc, now Warwick. Chron. 914; _urbs_, Flor. Wig. 915.
Weardbyrig, now Warborough, Oxford; _urbs_, Flor. Wig. 916.
Wigingamere, probably in Hertfordshire. Chron. 951; _urbs_, Flor. Wig.
918; _civitas_, ibid.
Wigornaceaster, Worcester, a fortified city. Chron. 922, 1041.
Wihtgarabyrig, now Carisbrook. Chron. 530, 544.
Wiltún, Wilton in Wiltshire. Chron. 1008.
Wintanceaster, Winchester, the capital of Wessex, a fortified city.
Chron. 643, 648.
Withám, now Witham in Essex; a city and fortress. Chron. 913; Flor. Wig.
914.
Ðelweal, Thelwall in Cheshire, a fortress and garrison town. Chron. 923;
Flor. Wig. 920.
Ðetford, now Thetford in Norfolk; a fortress and city. Chron. 952, 1004.
It is not to be imagined that this list nearly exhausts the number of
fortresses, towns and cities extant in the Saxon times. It is only given
as a specimen, and as an illustration of the averments in the text. The
reader who wishes to pursue the subject, will find the most abundant
materials in the Index Locorum appended to Vol. VI. of the “Codex
Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici;” and to this I must refer him for any ampler
information.
APPENDIX D.
CYRICSCEAT.
I do not think it necessary to repeat here the arguments which I have
used elsewhere[1045], to show that Cyricsceat has nothing whatever to do
with our modern church-rates, or that these arose from papal usurpation
very long after the Norman Conquest. I can indeed only express my
surprise that any churchman should still be found willing to continue a
system which exposes the dignity and peace of the church to be disturbed
by any schismatic who may see in agitation a cheap step to popularity.
But as the question has been put in that light, it may be convenient for
the sake of reference to collect the principal passages in the laws and
charters which refer to the impost. They are the following:—
“Be cyricsceattum. Cyricsceattas sýn ágifene be Seint Martines mæssan.
Gif hwá ðæt ne gelǽste, sý he scyldig LX scill. and be twelffealdum
ágyfe ðone cyricsceat.” Ine, § 4; Thorpe, i. 104.
“Be cyricsceattum. Cyricsceat mon sceal ágifan tó ðæm healme and to ðæm
heorðe ðe se man on bið tó middum wintra.” Ine, § 61; Thorpe, i. 140.
“And ic wille eác ðæt míne geréfan gedón ðæt man ágyfe ða cyricsceattas
and ða sáwlsceattas tó ðám stowum, ðe hit mid rihte tó gebyrige.”
Æthelst. i.; Thorpe, i. 196.
“Be teoðungum and cyricsceattum. Teoðunge we bebeódað ǽlcum cristenum
men be his cristendóme, and cyricsceat, and ælmesfeoh. Gif hit hwá dón
nylle, sý he amansumod.” Eádm. i. § 2; Thorpe, i. 244.
“Be cyricsceat. Gif hwá ðonne þegna sý, ðe on his bóclande cyrican
hæbbe, ðe legerstowe on sý, gesylle he ðonne þriddan dǽl his ágenre
teoðunge intó his cyrican. Gif hwá cyrican hæbbe, ðe legerstow on ne sý,
ðonne dó he of ðǽm nygan dǽlum his preost ðæt ðæt he wille. And gá ylc
cyricsceat intó ðæm ealdan mynster be ǽlcum frigan (h)eorðe.” Eádgár, i.
§ 1, 2; Thorpe, i. 262.
“Neádgafol úres drihtnes, ðæt sýn úre teoðunga and cyricsceattas.”
Eádgár, Supp. § 1; Thorpe, i. 270.
“And cyricsceat tó Martinus mæssan.” Æðelr. vi. § 18; Thorpe, i. 320.
“And cyricsceat gelǽste man be Martinus mæssan, and seðe ðæt ne gelǽste,
forgilde hine mid twelffealdan, and ðám cyninge CXX scill.” Æðelr. ix. §
11; Thorpe, i. 342.
“Et præcipimus, ut omnis homo super dilectionem dei et omnium sanctorum
det cyricsceattum et rectam decimam suam, sicut in diebus antecessorum
nostrorum stetit, quando melius stetit; hoc est, sicut aratrum
peragrabit decimam acram.” Æðelr. viii. § 4; Thorpe, i. 338.
“De ciricsceatto dicit vicecomitatus quod episcopus, de omni terra quæ
ad ecclesiam suam pertinet, debet habere, in die festivitatis sancti
Martini, unam summam annonæ, qualis melior crescit in ipsa terra, de
unaquaque hida libera et villana; et si dies ille fractus fuerit, ille
qui retinuerit reddet ipsam summam, et undecies persolvat; et ipse
episcopus accipiat inde forisfacturam qualem ipse debet habere de terra
sua. De ciricsceatto de Perscora dicit vicecomitatus quod illa ecclesia
de Perscora debet habere ipsum ciricsceattum de omnibus ccc hidis,
scilicet de unaquaque hida ubi francus homo manet, unam summam annonæ,
et si plures habet hidas, sint liberæ; et si dies fractus fuerit, in
festivitate sancti Martini, ipse qui retinuerit det ipsam summam et
undecies persolvat, abbati de Perscora; et reddat forisfacturam abbati
de Westminstre quia sua terra est.” Cart. Heming. i. 49, 50. “De
ciricsceate. Dicit vicecomitatus quod de unaquaque hida terræ, libera
vel villana, quæ ad ecclesiam de Wirecestre pertinet, debet episcopus
habere, in die festo sancti Martini unam summam annonæ, de meliori quæ
ibidem crescit; quod si dies ille non reddita annona transierit, qui
retinuit annonam reddat, undecies persolvet, et insuper forisfacturam
episcopus accipiet, qualem et sua terra habere debet.” Ibid. 1, 308.
-----
Footnote 1045:
A Few Historical Remarks upon the supposed Antiquity of Church-rates.
Ridgway, 1836.
-----
The only instance that I can find of this impost being noticed in the
Ecclesiastical Laws, or Recommendations of the Bishops and Clergy, is in
the Canons attributed to Eádgár:—
“And we enjoin, that the priests remind the people of what they ought to
do to God for dues, in tithes and in other things; first plough-alms, xv
days after Easter; and tithe of young, by Pentecost; and of fruits of
the earth, by All Saints; and Róm-feoh (Peter-pence) by St. Peter’s
Mass; and Cyricsceat by Martinmass[1046].”
-----
Footnote 1046:
Thorpe, ii. 256.
-----
“Nunc igitur praecipio et obtestor omnes meos episcopos et regni
praepositos, per fidem quam Deo et mihi debetis, quatenus faciatis, ut
antequam ego Angliam veniam, omnia debita, quae Deo secundum legem
antiquam debemus, sint soluta, scilicet eleemosynae pro aratris, et
decimae animalium ipsius anni procreatorum, et denarii quos Romæ ad
sanctum Petrum debemus, sive ex urbibus sive ex villis, et mediante
Augusto decimae frugum, et in festivitate sancti Martini _primitiae
seminum_ ad ecclesiam sub cuius parochia quisque est, quae Anglice
_Circesceat_ nominantur[1047].”
-----
Footnote 1047:
Epist. Cnut. Flor. Wig. an. 1031.
-----
Oswald’s grants often contain this clause: “Sit autem terra ista libera
omni regi nisi aecclesiastici censi.” See Codex Dipl. Nos. 494, 498,
515, 540, 552, 558, 649, 680, 681, 682. But sometimes the amount is more
closely defined: thus in No. 498, two bushels of wheat. In No. 511 we
have this strong expression: “Free from all _worldly service_
(weoruldcund þeówet), except three things, one is cyricsceat, and that
he (work) with all his might, twice in the year, once at mowing, once at
reaping.” And in No. 625 he repeats this, making the land granted free,
“ab omni _mundialium_ servitute tributorum, exceptis sanctae Dei
aecclesiae necessitatibus atque utilitatibus.” Again, “Et semper
possessor terrae illius reddat tributum aecclesiasticum, quod ciricsceat
dicitur, tó Pirigtúne; et omni anno unus ager inde aretur tó Pirigtúne,
et iterum metatur.”—Cod. Dipl. No. 661. “Sit autem hoc praedictum rus
liberum ab omni _mundiali_ servitio, ... excepta sanctae Dei basilicae
suppeditatione ac ministratione.”—Ibid. No. 666.
The customs of Dyddanham[1048] impose upon the gebúr the duty of finding
the cyricsceat to the lord’s barn, but whether because the lord was an
ecclesiastic does not clearly appear.
-----
Footnote 1048:
Now Tidenham in Gloucestershire, near the point where the Wye falls
into the Severn, nearly 2° 36´ west longitude from Greenwich.
-----
The important provisions of Denewulf’s and Ealhfrið’s charters have been
sufficiently illustrated in the text.
After the conquest, Chirset or Chircettum, as it is called, was very
irregularly levied: it appears to have been granted occasionally by the
lords to the church, but no longer to have been a general impost: and
nothing is more common than to find it considered as a set-off against
other forms of rent-paying, on lay as well as ecclesiastical land. If
the tenant gave _work_, he usually paid no chircet: if he paid chircet,
his amount of labour-rent was diminished: a strong evidence, if any more
were wanted, that cyricsceat has nothing whatever to do with
church-rate.
THE END.
Printed by Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
On p. 152, a single footnote anchor is in the text (360); however two
notes appear at the bottom of the page. The first is unnumbered, and the
second has no anchor in the text. The unnumbered note is an accurate
reference to p. 753 of the 1854 German edition of Jacob Grimm’s _Deutsch
Rechalterthümer_ (2nd volume), and was obviously intended as footnote 1.
The second note, numbered ‘2’ in the original (“Gloss. _in voc._
Grafio.”), has no anchor and no obvious reference. The two notes have
simply been combined.
On p. 294, the last line of the page (‘the extermination of its
inhabitants, is the only re-’) was obviously misplaced to the top of the
page. It has been placed in the intended position.
Minor lapses in the consistency of punctuation in citations have been
corrected with no further mention.
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected,
and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original, not counting any embedded tables. Where a third reference is
employed, the reference is to the line within the designated footnote
(e.g. 166.1.1 refers to the first line in the first footnote on p. 166,
as printed).
4.1.10 Abergavenny, lat. 51° 49´ N., long. 3° 2´[ W.]> Added.
4.1.44 between Perth and Inverness[,] Added.
27.5 of becoming familiar w[t/i]th the views Replaced.
35.4.34 God’s church and all the Ch[r]istian people Inserted.
35.4.22 which archbishop D[u/ú]nstán delivered Replaced.
46.2.2 were simil[i]arly circumstanced Removed.
48.2 the time of Æðelr[æ/ǽ]d (990-995) Replaced.
50.1.4 unless the king pardon him.[”] Added.
51.2.4 that he could not forfeit.[”] Added.
52.2.27 sceleribus[ ]semet[ ]ipsum condempn[ ]avit Spaces
added.
102.3.19 p. 154[,/.] Replaced.
152.19 there cannot be the sligh[t]est connection. Inserted.
155.3 in connexion with judic[i]al functions Inserted.
157.12 In a prece[e]ding chapter Removed.
158.1.3 Wulfsige preóst sc[i/í]rigman Replaced.
162.21 before Æðelríc beca[em/me] sheriff Transposed.
203.2.3 head of the church in his dominio[u/n]s Inverted.
204.5 encircled by an _[abbatis]_ of timber _sic_:
abatis
233.2.47 witnessed by all the scírþ[e]genas in Hampshire Removed.
238.10 the Campus Ma[d]ius of Charlemagne Restored.
260.7.1 Chron. Sa[s/x]. an. 1048. Replaced.
273.1.16 [‘]nihil profici patientia _sic_
273.1.24 the duties laid upon the[n/m] Replaced.
295.24 injure its forti[fi]cations Inserted.
310.9 we may more famil[i]arly term Inserted.
451.9 the eager credul[i]ty which they showed Inserted.
526.17 to meet the ‘gemot’ by the king’[s] command Added.
543.15 Tous les hommes habitant dans l’enc[ie/ei]nte Transposed.
543.30 un[e] femme relevant d’une autre seigneurie Added.
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