It is certain that, whatever we may determine concerning the constituent members of the wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the legislature resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period preceding the Norman conquest, was becoming extremely aristocratical: the royal authority was very limited; the people, even if admitted to that assembly, were of little or no weight and consideration. We have hints given us in historians of the great power and riches of particular noblemen; and it could not but happen, after the abolition of the Heptarchy, when the king lived at a distance from the provinces, that those great proprietors, who resided on their estates, would much augment their authority over their vassals and retainers, and over all the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Hence the immeasurable power assumed by Harold, Godwin, Leofric, Siward, Morcar, Edwin, Edric, and Alfric who controlled the authority of the kings, and rendered themselves quite necessary in the government. The two latter, though detested by the people on account of their joining a foreign enemy, still preserved their power and influence; and we may therefore conclude that their authority was founded, not on popularity, but on family rights and possessions. There is one Athelstan, mentioned in the reign of the king of that name, who is called alderman of all England, and is said to be half king; though the monarch himself was a prince of valor and abilities.[**] And we find that in the later Saxon times, and in these alone, the great offices went from father to sun, and became in a manner hereditary in the families.[A]
[* Hist. Eliensis, lib. ii. cap 40]
[** Hist. Rames. Beet. iii. p. 387]
The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also serve much to increase the power of the principal nobility. Those freebooters made unexpected inroads on all quarters, and there was a necessity that each county should resist them by its own force, and under the conduct of its own nobility and its own magistrates. For the same reason that a general war, managed by the united efforts of the whole state commonly augments the power of the crown, those private wars and inroads turned to the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.
Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and the arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very ill administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have prevailed. These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power of the aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase it. Men, not daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were obliged to devote themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose orders they followed even to the disturbance of the government, or the injury of their fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return, protection from any insult or injustice by strangers. Hence we find, by the extracts which Dr. Brady has given us from Domesday, that almost all the inhabitants, even of towns, had placed themselves under the clientship of some particular nobleman, whose patronage they purchased by annual payments, and whom they were obliged to consider as their sovereign, more than the king himself, or even the legislature.[B]
[A] Roger Hoveden, giving the reason why William the Conqueror
made Cospatric earl of Northumberland, says, “Nam ex materno
sanguine attinebat ad eum honor illius comitatus. Erat enim
ex matre Algitha, filia Uthredi comitis.” See also Sim.
Dunelm. p. 205. We see in those instances the same tendency
towards rendering offices hereditary which took place,
during a more early period, on the continent; and which had
already produced there its full effect.
[B] Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, etc. The case
was the same with the freemen in the country. See Pref. to
his Hist. p. 8, 9, 10, etc.
A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to belong to his patron, that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a fine to the latter, as a compensation for his loss; in like manner as he paid a fine to the master for the murder of his slave.[A] Men who were of a more considerable rank, but not powerful enough each to support himself by his own independent authority, entered into formal confederacies with each other, and composed a kind of separate community, which rendered itself formidable to all aggressors. Dr. Hickes has preserved a curious Saxon bond of this kind, which he calls a “sodalitium,” and which contains many particulars characteristical of the manners and customs of the times.[B] All the associates are there said to be gentlemen of Cambridgeshire; and they swear before the holy relics to observe their confederacy, and to be faithful to each other: they promise to bury any of the associates who dies, in whatever place he had appointed; to contribute to his funeral charges, and to attend to his interment; and whoever is wanting in this last duty, binds himself to pay a measure of honey. When any of the associates is in danger, and calls for the assistance of his fellows, they promise, besides flying to his succor, to give information to the sheriff; and if he be negligent in protecting the person exposed to danger, they engage to levy a fine of one pound upon him; if the president of the society himself be wanting in this particular, he binds himself to pay one pound; unless he has the reasonable excuse of sickness, or of duty to his superior. When any of the associates is murdered, they are to exact eight pounds from the murderer; and if he refuse to pay it, they are to prosecute him for the sum at their joint expense. If any of the associates, who happens to be poor, kill a man, the society are to contribute, by a certain proportion, to pay his fine,—a mark apiece, if the fine be seven hundred shillings; less if the person killed be a clown or ceorle; the half of that sum, again, if he be a Welshman But where any of the associates kill a man wilfully and without provocation, he must himself pay the fine. If any of the associates kill any of his fellows in a like criminal manner, besides paying the usual fine to the relations of the deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or renounce the benefit of it; in which case they bind themselves, under the penalty of one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the presence of the king, bishop, or alderman. There are other regulations to protect themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge such as are committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to each other; and the fine which they engage to pay for this last offence is a measure of honey.
[A] LL. Edw. Conf. Sect. viii. apad Ingulph.
[B] Dissert. Epist. p. 21.
It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been a great source of friendship and attachment, when men lived in perpetual danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received protection chiefly from their personal valor, and from the assistance of their friends and patrons. As animosities were then more violent, connections were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from blood: the most remote degree of propinquity was regarded; an indelible memory of benefits was preserved; severe vengeance was taken for injuries, both from a point of honor and as the best means of future security; and the civil union being weak, many private engagements were contracted, in order to supply its place, and to procure men that safety, which the laws and their own innocence were not alone able to insure to them.
On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body, even of the free citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty than where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil magistrate. The reason is derived from the excess itself of that liberty. Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and magistrates, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by herding in some private confederacy, which acts under the direction of a powerful leader. And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of tyranny, if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.
Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the wittenagemot, both in going and returning, “except they were notorious thieves and robbers.”