[590] Asser, 493 C [60].
[591] Ibid. 495 A [64]. W. M. says that in the Nuns’ Chapterhouse at Shaftesbury was a stone, transferred thither from the walls of the town, with this inscription: ‘Anno Dom. Inc. Elfredus rex fecit hanc urbem DCCCLXXXᵒ. regni suo VIIIᵒ,’ G. P. p. 187 (cf. Lib. de Hyda, p. 49, which reads reparauit’ for ‘fecit’). This shows that Shaftesbury was one of Alfred’s ‘burgs,’ and it occurs in the Burghal Hidage with a territory of 700 hides, Maitland, Domesday, p. 503. It certainly has a most commanding position.
[592] See the document by which Edward acquires land for carrying out his father’s intentions, Birch, No. 605; K. C. D. No. 1087. The so-called ‘golden charter’ of foundation ‘pro anima patris mei Alfredi regis totius Anglie [!] primi coronati,’ is a flagrant forgery, Birch, No. 602, K. C. D. No. 336; cf. Liber de Hyda, pp. xxiii ff.
[593] 493 D [61].
[594] 494 [62-64].
[595] Asser, 496 A, B [67]; cf. Einhard, c. 27, for similar liberality on the part of Charles the Great towards foreign Christians.
[596] 495 C-496 B [65-67].
[597] The ‘Modus tenendi Parliamenti’ (Stubbs’ Charters, pp. 502 ff.) is a curious instance of a purely imaginary constitution giving itself out as historical. It may be as old as Edward I’s reign; if so, as Gneist says, ‘es würde nur dann beweisen dass es schon damals Ideologen des Feudalismus gab,’ Verwaltungsrecht, p. 393.
[598] Const. Hist. i. 105, 143.
[599] Above, §§ 35, 78.