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told him that a new parcelling out of the country was the surest stay of Norman predominance; the compilation of Doomsday, by his orders, may prove his anxiety to be minutely informed of its accomplishment. That invaluable record was intended to contain a survey of all the lands in the kingdom,—of the names of their then possessors, as well as of those who had them in the Confessor's reign,—and likewise of the number and apportionment of the freemen, villains, cottagers, and slaves. But as the chief object of interest was the extent of the king's own demesnes and those of his tenants-in-chief, only an account of these is complete. Doomsday affords, however, a very interesting description of the state of property to which the conquest had led. It appears from it that the tenants-in-chief of the crown did not amount to 700 in England, except the four northern counties, which were not included in the survey. Of these 700, almost all were Normans. Cospatric, son of the earl of Northumberland of that name, is one of the few persons whom we can distinguish as of Saxon birth. Of the sub-tenants, however, of whom, it is generally supposed, that Doomsday contains but a partial enumeration, a great proportion were undoubtedly Saxons. The king himself was the greatest landed proprietor, possessing no fewer than 1432 manors in different parts of the kingdom. Many of the Norman chieftains had obtained enormous grants from the crown, as well of the lands which had been confiscated after the battle of Hastings, as of those seized during the numerous risings in which the English engaged. These lands they again let out, often with equal liberality, to their immediate followers, or allowed to remain in the hands of the old proprietors, under the burden of feudal services. Thus, though the number of tenants-in-chief was comparatively small, there were no fewer than 60,215 knights' fees in England, 28,015 of which are said to have been in the hands of the clergy. 2 But many of these knight-fees were of little value. The unsettled state of the country had destroyed its fertility; and we have a striking picture of the ravages which had been committed in the Conqueror's reign, in the fact, that the houses in the towns were reduced, on an average, to at least one-half of the number existing in the days of the Confessor. "Know," said a tenant-in-chief to Henry II., "that I hold of you a very poor fee of one knight, nor have I enfeoffed any other therein, because it is hardly sufficient for me alone, and my father held it in the same manner." 3

Along with this new distribution of property, as may appear from the terms descriptive of it, the feudal system was finally established.Express enactments may have been made to extend and confirm that system, but the situation of the country, the manners, and, above all, the security of the Norman power, were the immediate and necessary causes of its full introduction. That it was brought over by the Conqueror from Normandy, is the general statement of historians; but there is no sufficient evidence of its complete existence in that country at so early a period. The truth is, that wherever the authority of law

Madox Hist. of Excheq. c. 15, p. 400, 401. At an early period of the Saxon power, Spelman says that England was divided into 243,600 hydes, or plough lands, according to which, military and other services were imposed.

Some of the crown-tenants had only very small portions of a knight's fee. Brady's Animadversions, 185, 186.

is doubtful, more especially, as in England after the conquest,-where an army of foreigners have depressed the native inhabitants, and seized their lands, the completion of such a plan of mutual defence and aggression is unavoidable. Even in the Saxon times, if the feudal connection were not drawn so close, and did not so materially affect the institutions of the country; or though the-perhaps adventitious-casualties of wardship (the right of the overlord to the custody of the person and estate of his minor vassal), or of marriage (his right to control the marriage of that vassal being cessmale), were not known, we can discern elements of the system. No great distinction can be drawn between the heriot, well known to the Anglo-Saxons, whatever portion of the property it may primarily have affected, and the relief of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. Both were payments, required by law, by a vassal, or what ever else we may term him, to an overlord, on succeeding to the estate of his ancestor, and were originally perhaps intended as a price for the renewal of the right. The trinoda necessitus, indeed, of the Saxon laws, or the obligation of military service in defence of the statewhich is mentioned as early as the time of Ina; the burthen of repairing bridges and the royal fortresses; are to be likened rather to the duties of a free citizen, than to the feudal, stated obligation of the vassal to contribute to the ransom of his lord from captivity,—to the knighthood of the lord's eldest son, or to the marriage of his eldest daughter; the undoubted tokens of dependence or subjection. But, on the other hand, there can be no question that the Saxons were familiar with beneficiary possessions; that feudal homage is often mentioned; nay, that the very word vassal occurs in an early period of their history.5 They had fines for alienations; and their escheats were in some cases more rigorous than any known on the continent in the strictest periods of the feudal law. The Irish judges, in the great case of tenures, supposed further, that the greater thanes among the Saxons were the king's immediate tenants of lands by personal service, and that the land so held was termed thaneland, as land holden in soccage was known by the name of reveland. The title of thane, they imagined, was changed to that of baron after the conquest.6 Sir Henry Spelman himself, the great advocate of the nonexistence of the feudal system under the Saxon government, admitted, that land granted only at will, or for a limited number of years, and which came under the denomination of folkland, was frequent in the times of the Saxons; though, in his opinion, their hereditary estates, termed thaneland or bocland, were allodial, and not liable to feudal service. Lands of the former description were, as he thought, benefices, and after the conquest, were, along with the bocland or charterland, converted into hereditary fiefs. And as many persons had lands of both sorts, the feudalizing of one of them was compensated by the conversion of the temporary right to the other into a title of hereditary enjoyment. That the feudal system was altogether a Norman invention, appears, therefore, to be too broad an assertion; and the truth may be said to lie midway between the authors who contend for the complete deve

1

Millin's Leg. Anglo-Sax. p. 13.

5 Asser, P. 33.

Case of Tenures upon the Commission of Defective Titles, 8vo, 1720.
Spelman on Tenures, c. 12, c. 5.

lopement of that system under the Anglo-Saxon monarchy, and those who deny that there was the slightest approximation to it. At ali events, the Saxon vassals by choice the usual way, indeed, by which, on the continent, allodial was changed into feudal property, and likewise entitled, on the death of the overlord, to select any other superior they thought fit 8-as well as those vassals whose relation to their superior was of a more feudal character, presenting at least the appearance of obligation to military service, were, in the Norman times, equally brought under the control of strictly feudal relationship.

Notwithstanding the transfer of a large portion of the country to the Norman leaders, the introduction of institutions of Norman origin,— and in particular, the new modelling, to a great extent, of the tenure by which land was held,-many of the old customs were retained, especially those which related to the internal administration of the execu tive government, and the distribution of justice. The conquest effected no radical change in the principles of the constitution; and it is certain, that in the reign of the Conqueror and his sons, the county and the hundred courts, perhaps the most remarkable features of Saxon legislation, remained in full activity; and upon the whole, the ancient laws do not seem to have been altered even so far as might have been looked for from the violent change which had taken place, and the rigorous precautions adopted to quell frequent insurrections. The Norman settlement, in short, was the substitution of a rew oligarchy for an old one; not the entrance of a nation after the expulsion of another, as had been the case when the Saxons came into Britain. But when property was subdivided in the course of a few reigns, the body of the people rose in importance; and the genius of Saxon equality, which had continued to lurk in the county and hundred courts, acquired additional vigour. It has been already noticed, that though the lands held of the crown were almost entirely in the hands of the new race, many of the Saxon proprietors held their former possessions under the king's grantees. The subdivision of the lands belonging to the crown-tenants, led to an increased influence amongst these other portions of the community. Normandy, too, soon came to be regarded as a province of England; nor did it remain long subject to the English kings. It was separated from England in the reign of William Rufus, and during that of Henry I., till the defeat and captivity of his brother Robert; again in Stephen's reign; and finally in that of John, whose son and successor, Henry III., solemnly renounced all claim to the dukedom of Normandy, in favour of the crown of France. The great body of the Normans, therefore, who were little inclined to submit to arbitrary rule, looked to England as their native country, and united with the English in forcing from their sovereigns repeated promises to adhere to the old Saxon laws,- -a demand which at least shows a traditional belief that these laws were more equitable than many of the customs which the conquest had introduced, and evinced a determination to impose more effectual checks upon the royal authority than had been in operation for some time after the conquest.

The immediate successors of the Conqueror were the most arbitrary in their conduct; but none of them reached the height of power which

⚫ Doomsday, 287, a. 6, 7, 129.-Lingard's Hist. of England, i. 458.

he attained. Though the government of William Rufus was lawlessthe monks have, however, exhibited it in the darkest colours—yet, being less popular among the nobles than his elder brother, Robert, duke of Normandy, whom he excluded from the throne, he found it necessary to throw himself in a great measure upon the support of his English subjects. If Henry I. changed his policy in this respect before the close of his reign, he was, on his accession, perhaps from the greater imperfection of his title, still more anxious than Rufus had been to conciliate their good-will, and, as the first act of his administration, granted a charter, in which he engaged that all the bad customs by which the kingdom had been oppressed, should be removed. The charter of Stephen-in the vulgar meaning of the word, an usurper—was still more explicit than that of Henry, though its execution was delayed by civil

war.

But whatever the arbitrary practices of the crown in an unsettled age, the right of the sovereign to enact laws without the consent of the great council, or as it was afterwards termed, the parliament of the kingdom, was not acknowledged, nor the attempt ventured, even in the times of the Conqueror. According to the words of a writ of summons to parliament, in the time of Edward I., it was always a maxim of the English constitution, "that what concerned all, should be done with the approbation of all; and that danger to the whole community, should be obviated by remedies provided by the whole community."

10

How the great councils were composed during the reigns of the first princes of the Norman and Plantagenet line, is, however, a question of considerable interest, with regard to which, it is proposed to enter into some discussion. Some of our most eminent antiquaries have represented them as formed on the model of the baronial courts of the different feudal lords, and, therefore, as attended only by the king's tenants-in-chief, or even a portion of their number. We shall, perhaps, have occasion to see that there was no very precise rule upon the subject; but, in the meantime, in reference to the opinion of those who argue for the constant and absolute exclusion of all but a very limited part of the community from these assemblies, it ought to be observed, that, as regards political subordination, the feudal system was not established in England in the vigour by which it was distinguished on the continent, and that the Saxon institutions retained strength sufficient to check the spirit of the feudal aristocracy. At the same time, the paramount authority of the king's courts over those of the nobles, in conjunction with the influence of the county and hundred courts, weakened the ties of feudal subjection, and tempered the feelings of the vassal with those of the citizen. Even in Normandy, the dependence of the vassal on his lord was not so deeply rooted as in the rest of France. The baronial courts had not so large a jurisdiction;" and the court of Exchequer, composed of the principal officers of the duke, and the barons, or their delegates, comprehended the whole duchy within its jurisdiction; examined into abuses, and received appeals from the inferior tribunals.

• Parliament was not a word in common use till the time of Edward I.; but in these remarks it has sometimes been used as synonymous with "the great council." 10 Rot Unus, 24, Ed. i. as cited by Lyttelton, Hist. of Henry II. ii. 279.—See also Bracton.

"Houard Anc. Luis des Français, i. p. 196.

In entering upon an inquiry into the constitution of the great council, it may be proper, in the first place, to state shortly the nature and functions of the Saxon wittenagemote, of which it was the successor. In conjunction with the king, the wittenagemote possessed all the powers of government. Its assent was necessary to the enactment of laws; it had the supreme judicial power of the kingdom; the question of peace and war lay with it; at its meetings grants of land by the crown were bestowed or confirmed. There, also, the election of bishops, subject to confirmation by the sovereign, was sometimes made; and the prerogative of the assembly went the length of regulating the succession to the throne itself. The name of this council, invested with so great authority, means literally, the assembly of the wise men; and in the general descriptions of historians, it is said to have consisted of prelates and abbots, of the aldermen of shires, and of the wise men, great men, counsellors, and senators of the kingdom.13 We have, however, only imperfect notices of the manner of its constitution. But it seems most probable, that " as the court of every tything, hundred, and shire was composed of the respective proprietors of land in those districts, the constituent members of the wittenagemote were the people of a similar description throughout the whole kingdom." 14 The passage in the

register of Ely, from which some have inferred that no one had a right to appear in the assembly, unless he possessed an estate of 40 hides of land, or between 4000 and 5000 acres, does not warrant that conclusion.15 If, then, all the proprietors of lands, or, as they were termed, thanes, who were very numerous, had the right of attending at the deliberations of the wittenagemote, that right must have been extensive; but it is also obvious, that the exercise of the abstract right would practically be but limited,-without representation it was useless; and is only deserving of remark, as it marks the popular bias of the Saxon polity. If, indeed, it could be shown that the dignity of alderman or earl, though in time it became hereditary or dependent upon the will of the monarch, had been originally an annual office, to which the freeholders in the county court had the right of election,16 its possessor, when sitting in the wittenagemote, might not inaptly be considered a representative of the county over which he presided. But the Saxon chronicle informs us, that the king, in early times, had the nomination of the dukes, earls, and sheriffs of the counties; and Alfred appears, of his own authority, to have deposed several ignorant aldermen.17

Like the wittenagemote of the Saxon monarchy, the great council, after the conquest, possessed the supreme legislative and judicial power of the realm. It was generally assembled at the three festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. The Easter council was usually summoned by the Conqueror to Winchester; the Whitsuntide one to

Eddius, cap. 2.-Hume, i. 203.

13 Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, iv. 275.

14 Millar's Historical View of the Eng. Gov. i. 205-Spelman Concil. sub ann. 555. "Hallam's Middle Ages, ii. 388.-Sir William Dugdale was of opinion, that the Fame qualification was necessary to the creation of a parliamentary barony after the Conquest.-Carte, ii. 246.-Dugdale's Preface to the Baronage of England.

18 As supposed by Millar, i. 291, 293, 295.

17 It deserves, however, to be noticed, that the laws of Edward the Confessor state expressly, $35. that the heretochs, or dukes, were elected by the freeholders. The once popular notion, that the Anglo-Saxons had a representative system, may now be looked upon as altogether abandoned.

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