Thus we see that the English kings were elected by the assembly of the nation; and they went through some form of election, perfunctory though it was no doubt, even in times subsequent to the Norman conquest. We have already mentioned that the institution of kingship was subsequent to the invasion of Britain, and was due to the immense amount of territory that fell to the disposal of the victorious general and the accession of importance he assumed thereby. The king was the chief magistrate in peace, and the leader of the national host (fyrd) in war; and the introduction of Christianity invested him with new attributes of sanctity. Still, it is important to notice that the idea of treason, and the penalty of death attached to it, was of late development. The penalty for killing a king is only a higher wergild than in the case of an ordinary individual.

The difference between class and class becomes more sharply defined after the invasion of Britain than before it. The bodyguard of the king (comitatus or gesith) is more distinctly dependent upon him. They are known as his servants, or thegns. As regards the bulk of the people they form, however, a noble class. There were king's thegns and lesser thegns; the distinction being apparently regulated by the amount of land which they possessed.

It was possible, however, for men who were not owners of land, to rise to the rank of thegn. Thus Athelstan decreed that a merchant who made three long sea voyages on his own account should be entitled to the quality of thegn. The classes of ceorls, or freedmen, and laets, landless men who cultivated the soil for their lords, continued to exist; but there was also a class of absolute slaves usually occupied in household labour, whose position must have been most unenviable. The power of the master over his slave, however, was not unlimited, for if he beat his eyes or his teeth out, the latter might claim his liberty; and if he killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided the slave died within a day after receiving his wound.

The English Church was on the best of relations with the various kingdoms with which its dioceses coincided. The bishop sat with the sheriff and alderman in the shire-moot, and was a member of the witena-gemot. The kings and aldermen in the same way took part in the ecclesiastical councils which were convened after the organisation of the ecclesiastical system by Theodore of Tarsus. According to his scheme of reform, a general council of the whole Church was to assemble every August, and he himself presided over two great councils at Hertford and Hatfield. The idea was not carried out after his death with perfect regularity, especially after Archbishop Egbert had successfully asserted the independence of the see of York; still such assemblies were occasionally held, and were of the greatest assistance in developing the idea of national unity. They met at some border town such as Clovesho, an unknown spot near London, where the hostile kings of Mercia, Wessex, Kent, and Essex associating with the bishops, abbots, and occasionally diocesan clergy, learnt to sink their differences, and to realise the greatness of their common interests. Even after the national assemblies had practically resolved themselves into the two provincial synods of Canterbury and York, the comparative unimportance of the northern province frequently invested the proceedings of the southern with a national character. Assemblies of each diocese were also occasionally summoned, which were largely attended by the parish priests, the parish coinciding with the townships in the same way that the diocese coincided with the kingdom or subkingdom.

Typo. Etchin. Co. del. et. sc.

MAP OF ENGLAND SHOWING THE ANGLO-SAXON KINGDOMS AND DANISH DISTRICTS.

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The English Church was notably a learned Church, and numbered among its dignitaries Bede, the historian of the Church. Despite the intimate connection between Church and State, it was not a distinctly political Church. The sees were often set up at a distance from the great towns; and the bishops made their ecclesiastical duties the chief interest of their lives, seldom degenerating, as on the Continent, into great territorial princes. The Church was also a popular institution. It was supported by voluntary tithes which were not made imperative by law earlier than the year 787. Its main fault was a certain desultoriness of effort, which is to be traced in the failure to carry out Theodore's plans in their integrity. Learning had almost died out at the time of the accession of Alfred, and the invasions of the Danes can only be adduced as a partial excuse. We find that king complaining that very few of his clergy could translate a letter from Latin. The Church was, moreover, excessively monastic. Pious kings founded and liberally endowed numerous monasteries, which rapidly became luxurious and corrupt, until some were religious societies only in name. The system, however, had its advantages when it was necessary to furnish missionaries gratuitously to poor districts.