were aethelings — generally, if not exclusively, sons and brothers
of the king. The ealdorman, originally a high officer, having the
executive government of a shire, and a seat in the king's witan,
became hereditary in certain families, and eventually attained
the dignity of an earl. But centuries were to pass before the
English nobility was to assume its modern character and denominations.
At the head of each village was an eorl, the chief of
the freemen, or ceorls — their leader in war and patron in peace.
The king's gesiths and thegns formed another privileged class.
Admitted to offices in the king's household and councils, and
enriched by grants of land, they gradually formed a feudal
nobility.
The revival of the Christian Church, under the Anglo-Saxon rule, created another order of rulers and councillors, destined to take a leading part in the government of the state. The archbishops and bishops, having spiritual authority in their own dioceses, and exercising much local influence in temporal affairs, were also members of the national council, or witenagcmot, and by their greater learning and capacity were not long in acquiring a leading part in the councils of the realm. Ecclesiastical councils were also held, comprising bishops, abbots, and clergy, in which we observe the origin of convocation. The abbots, thus associated with the bishops, also found a place with them in the witenagemot. By these several orders, summoned to advise the king in affairs of state, was formed a council of magnates — to be developed, in course of time, into an upper chamber, or House of Lords.
The rise of the Commons (see Representation) as a political power in the national councils, was of yet slower development: but in the Anglo-Saxon moots may be discerned the first germs of popular government in England. In the town-moot the assembled freemen and cultivators of the " folk-lands " regulated the civil affairs of their own township, tithing, village or parish. In the burgh-moot the inhabitants administered their municipal business, under the presidency of a reeve. The hundred-moot assumed a more representative character, comprising the reeve and a selected number of freemen from the several townships and burghs within the hundred. The shire-moot, or shire-gemot, was an assembly yet more important. An ealdorman was its president, and exercised a jurisdiction over a shire, or district comprising several hundreds. Attended by a reeve and four freemen from every hundred, it assumed a distinctly representative character. Its members, if not elected (in the modern sense) by the popular voice, were, in some fashion, deputed to act on behalf of those whose interests they had come to guard. The shire-moot was also the general folk-moot of the tribe, assembled in arms, to whom their leaders referred the decision of questions of peace and war.
Superior to these local institutions was the witenagemot, or assembly of wise men, with whom the king took counsel in legislation and the government of the state. This national council was the true beginning of the parliament of England. Such a council was originally held in each of the kingdoms commonly known as the Heptarchy; and after their union in a single realm, under King Edgar, the witenagemot became the deliberative and legislative assembly, or parliament, of the extended estate. The witenagemot made laws, imposed taxes, concluded treaties, advised the king as to the disposal of public lands and the appointment and removal of officers of state, and even assumed to elect and depose the king himself. The king had now attained to greater power, and more royal dignities and prerogatives. He was unquestionably the chief power in the witenagemot; but the laws were already promulgated, as in later times, as having been agreed to with the advice and consent of the witan. The witan also exercised jurisdiction as a supreme court. These ancient customs present further examples of the continuity of English constitutional forms.
The constitution of the witenagemot, however, was necessarily less popular than that of the local moots in the hundred or the shire. The king himself was generally present; and at his summons came prelates, abbots, ealdormen, the king's gesiths and thegns. officers of state and of the royal household, and
leading tenants in chief of lands held from the crown. Crowds sometimes attended the meetings of the witan, and shouted their acclamations of approval or dissent; and, so far, the popular voice was associated with its deliberations; but it was at a distance from all but the inhabitants of the place in which it was assembled, and until a system of representation {q.v.) had slowly grown up there could be no further admission of the people to its deliberations. In the town-moot the whole body of freemen and cultivators of the folk-lands met freely under a spreading oak, or on the village green; in the hundred-moot, or shiregemot. deputies from neighbouring communities could readily find a place; but all was changed in the wider council of a kingdom. When there were many kingdoms, distance obstructed any general gathering of the Commons; and in the wider area of England such a gathering became impossible. Centuries were yet to pass before this obstacle was to be overcome by representation; but, in the meantime, the local institutions of the Anglo-Saxons were not without their influence upon the central council. The self-government of a free people informed the bishops, ealdormen, ceorls and thegns who dwelt among them of their interests and needs, their sufferings and their wrongs; and, while the popular forces were increasing with an advancing societ)'. they grew more powerful in the councils of their rulers.
Another circumstance must not be overlooked in estimating the political influence of the people in Anglo-Saxon times. For five centuries the country was convulsed with incessant wars — wars with the Britons, whom the invaders were driving from their homes, wars between the several kingdoms, wars with the Welsh, wars with the Picts, wars with the Danes. How could the people continue to assert their civil rights amid the clash of arms and a frequent change of masters? The warrior-kings and their armed followers were rulers in the land which they had conquered. At the same time the unsettled condition of the country repressed the social advancement of its people. Agriculture could not prosper when the farm of the husbandman too often became a battlefield. Trade could not be extended without security to property and industry. Under such conditions the great body of the people continued as peasants, handicrafts men and slaves. The time had not yet come when they could make their voice heard in the councils of the state.
The Norman Conquest. — The Anglo-Saxon polity was suddenly overthrown by the Norman Conquest. A stern foreign king had seized the crown, and was prepared to rule his conquered realm by the sword. He brought with him the absolutist principles of continental rulers, and the advanced feudal system of France and Normandy. Feudalism had been slowly gaining ground under the Saxon kings, and now it was firmly established as a military organization. William the Conqueror at once rewarded his warlike barons and followers with enormous grants of land. The Saxon landowners and peasants were despoiled, and the invaders settled in their homesteads. The king claimed the broad lands of England as his own, by right of conquest; and when he allowed his warriors to share the spoil he attached the strict condition of military service in return for every grant of land. An effective army of occupation of all ranks was thus quartered upon every province throughout the realm. England was held by the sword; a foreign king, foreign nobles, and a foreign soldiery were in possession of the soil, and swore fealty to their master, from whom they held it. Saxon bishops were deposed, and foreign prelates appointed to rule over the English Church. Instead of calling a national witenagemot, the king took counsel with the officers of his state and household, the bishops, abbots, earls, barons and knights by whom he v.as phased to surround himself. Some of the forms of a national council were indeed maintained, and its counsel and consent were proclaimed in the making of laws; but, in truth, the king was absolute.
Such a revolution seemed fatal to the liberties and r.-cient customs of Saxon England. What power could withstand the harsh conqueror? But the indestructible elements of English society prevailed over the sword. The king grasped, in his own hands, the higher administration and judicature of the realm;
