A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

The Comitatus.

Growth of feudalism.

But though this system would appear to have been common in nations of Germanic origin, it can be gathered from the Germania of Tacitus that other political institutions existed in Germany. Thus, the subdivisions of the Tribe were called Pagi, which seem to answer to the English Hundred. The Pagus was under the official chieftainship of an elective head called the Princeps, answering to the Saxon Ealdorman. This Pagus, which may perhaps have been originally a division of a hundred heads of families, supplied a hundred warriors to the host, a hundred assessors at the Judicial Court of the Princeps. Below this we come to the Vicus or township, which was probably organized upon the Mark system above described, or on some modification of it. The commanders in war, or Duces, were elected, probably from among the Principes, for each special occasion. It is, moreover, clear that private property had begun to exist. In pastoral life, where the common right of grazing would be the chief common privilege, there would be no difficulty in one man possessing more cattle than another. Neither would it be a great step to grant to such wealthier men, upon the redivision of the common arable mark, extra shares for the support of slaves or dependent freemen whom his wealth had attracted around him. There also existed a variety of ranks, which may be roughly divided into three classes,—the noble or eorl, who must have owed his nobility to birth; the freeman or ceorl, possessing his own homestead, his own share in the common land, and dependent on no man; and the læt or dependent workman, cultivating his lord’s land. Besides these, there were actual slaves or theows, consisting of men who had lost their liberty either as captives, or for debt, or for some other easily conceivable causes. It does not appear that nobility of birth gave any additional political rights, although personal consideration was awarded to the noble. It was the possession of free land which made a man a full member of the tribe. The læts, however, were probably dependent only as regarded their lord, in every other respect free. Thus, like other members of the community, their death had to be atoned for by the payment of a sum of money or weregild, although the sum was smaller than in the case of freemen. They probably formed a considerable part of the armed force of the nation. The class may have consisted originally of a conquered population of kindred blood, or of men who voluntarily put themselves into a state of dependency upon their richer neighbours for security, or because for some reason they had become landless. Side by side with this democratic constitution, there was a peculiar institution known as the Comitatus. Each Princeps was allowed to collect around him, under a tie of personal dependence, a body of professed warriors, who were bound to him by the closest ties of honour; and the importance of each chief must have depended in a great degree upon this following. In case of conquest, it would naturally be the duty of the conquering chief to see to the welfare of his followers, and to give them grants, which might either be grants in perpetuity, or only the right of present possession, and which would be drawn from the conquered land remaining over after its distribution among the body of freemen. To cultivate these grants, the comrades of the king would have had to employ their own dependants, and these dependants would settle in villages, which took the form of village communities, except that the rights, which in the free communities would be vested in the whole body of the freemen, were in this case vested in the lord. We here have the germ of the relation between vassal and lord. But this element of feudalism soon acquired greater strength. The conquering chief would take upon himself the title of king, claim descent from the gods, and make his line hereditary. As the position of the king advanced, the position of the comrade or Gesith would advance also. As the king of a tribe became the king of a nation his dignity would greatly increase, and with his that of his followers, who, as the court became more formal, would accept as honours duties about the household, and the word Gesith, comrade, changed into Thegn or servant. In times of war such nobles by service became natural leaders of the people, and the position of the chief men of the village proportionately sunk. So that there arose a class of nobles in immediate connection with the crown, possessing property not belonging to a village community, and exercising rights of lordship over its inhabitants. It is not difficult to see in what a superior position they were thus placed; what powers of encroachment they might have; and how willingly, in times of danger, village communities would put themselves in the same position with regard to them, as that occupied by those settlers on the Thegn’s lands, who had always acknowledged them as their lords. We have therefore two sources from which feudalism might have arisen; the village headman, in accordance with what seems to be a general law, as his powers came to be legally defined (especially in the matter of collecting the king’s taxes), would be regarded as the hereditary lord of the village, and would obtain the right of permanently enclosing his share of the common land; while the king’s Thegn, side by side with him, would plant his own subject villages, and accept by what is called commendation the supremacy of such villages as might offer it to him.

Saxon institutions introduced into England.

Land.

The Saxons then brought with them, in their invasion of England, their threefold division of rank, their association or township, their Pagus or Hundred, the Mark system, the principle of election to public functions, and the Comitatus or personal following of their chiefs. The conquering Principes or Ealdormen became kings. The country in all probability was divided out with some degree of regularity between villages, similar in constitution with those of Continental Germany. There was no necessity for these apportionments being equal. But a certain number of villages, whatever their property was, were divided into Pagi or Hundreds. This explains the inequality of those divisions. The unoccupied land was left in the king’s hands to reward his chief followers. On these demesnes, and on the public lands, the læts found their homes, with such of the conquered race as remained; and from time to time fresh estates were granted as fresh conquests increased the surplus land. From this land also the monasteries were endowed. The portion allotted to each free household was called the Hide. Land held by hereditary possession or by original allotment was called the Ethel. That held by grant from the public land and by charter was called Bocland (i.e. book-land). The land neither partitioned nor granted was the common property of the nation, and was called Folcland. As all land, whether bocland or folcland, could be let out, and was so treated on various conditions, there was much variety in the tenures of that class of people who did not possess free land of their own.

Judicial organization.

Whether the mark system prevailed to any great extent or not, (and this is a somewhat uncertain point,) practically it was the township which formed the lowest part of the general organization. The hundred was a collection of townships, the shire a collection of hundreds. The chief officer of the township, the town reeve, was elected by the freeholders of the township, and with four of their number represented that township in the Court of the Hundred, of which the township was a subordinate division. Townships established upon the lands of lords also had their reeve, but probably he was appointed by the lord. Their constitution was the same, but the proprietor of the soil took the duties and privileges which in a free township belonged to the freeholders. Such townships formed manors. It was from the township also that the burghs or towns arose. The Saxons had a natural dislike for town life, and we must not look for the arrangements of the borough to the remnants of Roman civilization. But when the village grew very large the same constitution as existed in the township was employed, the freeholders within the limits of the borough forming the municipal body. Such boroughs may also frequently have arisen from an agglomeration of townships. They would then be analogous to the hundred. The existence of two or three parishes in most boroughs leads to the same conclusion; for, ecclesiastically, the limits of the township and the parish were the same. Such towns, growing up naturally round the dwellings of wealthy men or of the king, would generally be either on folcland, and as such, dependent upon the crown, or upon the land of some lord on whom they would then depend. When the national system became organized, there would thus be the Court of the Township, with its counterpart in the dependent Township of the Manor Court. Above that, the Hundred Court, presided over by the Hundred-man, while the township were represented by their Reeve and four members. And above that there was the Shire Court or Gemot. The shires were not, properly speaking, part of the original organization. They seem to be in most cases the old sub-kingdoms. The Court, therefore, of the Shire represented the National Court. Over these sub-kingdoms or shires was appointed a royal officer, shire-reeve or sheriff, representative of the king for judicial and fiscal purposes. There is no proof that he was an elective officer. Beside the sheriff, who represented the central authority, was the Ealdorman, who had the command of the military force of the shire and the third of the fines levied. He was the representative of the old sub-king. He was a national officer, appointed by the king and by the central assembly of the nation, the Witana-Gemot. He sat with the sheriff in the Shire Court, but it would seem that the sheriff was the official whose presence constituted the court. In all the courts it was a principle that the suitors of the court, those, that is, who were liable to its jurisdiction, were also the judges; that is to say, the courts were essentially popular. The whole body present settled the disputes or judged the crimes of the individuals, the chief officer being, in fact, the chairman. Practically, in the Shire Court, twelve chief Thegns or chief freeholders sat with the sheriff as judges, representatives of the whole body. It was also a principle, at all events originally, that no superior court should have jurisdiction till the inferior courts had done their best towards the settlement of the disputed point.

Ecclesiastically, the parishes were co-extensive with the townships, the bishoprics in a great degree co-extensive with the shires or ancient kingdoms.