A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Growth of territorial jurisdiction.

In process of time, the position of the king somewhat changed. He began to be regarded as the one lord of the land. From being the King of the Saxons he gradually became the King of England. His personal relation became territorial. The folcland became royal demesne, and the king came to be regarded as the origin of justice. This change, among other causes, tended much to the growth of a system which was in fact incipient feudalism. The national courts constantly became more the private courts of great lords. The connection between the possession of land and the judicial power grew constantly stronger. It had early been the custom to establish in the favour of lords to whom grants were made Liberties, or Soken, as they were called; that is, land was granted exempted from the jurisdiction of the Hundred. The judicial rights of the Hundred, together with the payments accruing from them, were vested in the lord who received the grant. These rights are implied in the words sac and soc. As townships on a lord’s land became manors, so these Liberties, on which there were many townships, became private Hundreds. They were probably, before the Conquest, not exempted from the jurisdiction of the Shire. It has been already mentioned that, either by commendation or by the encroachment of local magnates, freemen (allodial proprietors as they were called) took in many cases the position of dependants. Their property then assumed the character of bocland, or land held by charter, instead of hereditary freehold. By commending themselves to a lord they would free themselves from the burden of military duty, which would then fall upon the lord as proprietor of the land. Justice would be more easily obtained from the neighbouring court of the lord than from the distant court of the Hundred or county. Protection from invasion or from the violence of neighbours would be gained. Again, the police regulation, by which all landless men were obliged to seek a lord, would strengthen the idea of the necessity of dependence.

Meanwhile, the Franchises and territorial jurisdictions went on increasing till the ideas of possession of land and jurisdiction began to go constantly together. The Thegn, who only possessed five Hides, had his court. In the time of Cnut a further step was taken. The wealthy landowner, under the name of Landrica, represented the king in his district, and had jurisdiction over the lesser freeholders. While, to crown all, the new position of the king gave him the sole jurisdiction over the holders of bocland, to which, as we have seen, allodial property was gradually assimilating itself. In all these ways private and territorial jurisdictions were strengthened, and enabled very largely to encroach upon the national and popular courts. The position of the Landrica was little else than that of a feudal baron, and the independence of the great hereditary official, so marked a characteristic of Continental feudalism, was almost reproduced in England, when Cnut divided the kingdom into four great Earldoms.

Central government. The Witan.

Increased power of the King.

Finance.

To pass from the local government to the central. It has been seen that justice and municipal law were carried on through a series of free assemblies or Gemots; so too the general meeting, or Gemot of the nation, constituted the chief legislative and judicial assembly. This was called the Witan or wise men, or the Witana-Gemot or assembly of wise men. It was doubtless originally the National Assembly of all free men, but by an easy change which befalls all such assemblies, attendance on it grew awkward to the multitude, and was shortly confined to those who bore office about the court, the king’s Thegns and bishops. The principle of representation was not understood, and the freemen, although they possessed an inherent right to be present, were not in fact represented, except in so far as the presence of friendly and neighbouring Thegns might be held to represent them. The power of the Witan was great and various, being in theory the power of a free nation. They could elect and discrown a king, and practically did elect him, though usually from among the nearest relatives of the late king. A remnant of this elective form of the monarchy still exists in our form of coronation. Peace and war were discussed in the Witan. The co-operation of the Witan was necessary to authorize alienation of public land; and to them ultimate judicial appeals were made. Early in the eleventh century, however, the king had so far improved his position that he was able to grant land without their leave, and also to call to his court cases not yet completed in the lower courts. The same change in the character of the king, which has been already mentioned, shows itself here also. He was originally the leader of a free tribe, perhaps of a clan, but gradually as his dominion extended his power rose also; and his personal influence, though somewhat undefined, was paramount. The great king could always wield the Witan as he pleased. His office was, as has been said, elective, but under certain restrictions. It seems to have been regarded as necessary that he should be an Ætheling (or born in legitimate wedlock), and in England. With this limit, and with a certain preference allowed to the eldest son, and to the one whom the dying king nominated, the choice of the Witan was free; and, practically, the prince of the royal house best fitted for the immediate circumstances of the kingdom was chosen. Thus the king’s brother was sometimes chosen instead of his son, who, in his turn, might succeed his uncle to the exclusion of his uncle’s children. This preference for the best man over the nearest relative continued after the Conquest, and renders erroneous the appellation of usurper when applied to the early Norman kings. The arrangements of finance, as far as they can be understood, were very simple. Upon every citizen, whether agricultural or urban, there was laid a trinoda necessitas, that is to say, the duty of serving in war, the repair of bridges and public roads, and the maintenance of fortifications. It is plain, therefore, that the wants of the crown were chiefly personal, that what we consider the chief expenses of government, justice, maintenance of public works, and military expenditure, were supported by the people themselves, without the interposition of government. The expenses of the crown would be discharged very largely from the public property or folcland reserved to the nation, and from such taxes as were rendered necessary from time to time to support the grandeur and hospitality of the king as national representative.

Police.

The system of police was based on the idea of mutual responsibility. Frankpledge or frithbohr, by which is meant the division of the country into sections of ten men mutually responsible for one another, cannot be proved to have existed before the Conquest. On the other hand, its principle no doubt existed. Every man, by the law of Cnut, was bound to be in a Hundred and a tithing. This latter term cannot be accurately defined, but it was a subdivision of the Hundred. By the laws of Æthelstan and Eadgar every landless man was compelled to have a lord to answer for him in the courts, and every man a surety to answer for him if he were absent when legally required.

From this sketch it will be seen that, with regard to classes, there must have been at the time of the Conquest Thegns, who were to all intents and purposes feudal barons; Sokmen, those freemen who owed suit to the lord’s soke or court; a certain number of Eorls or nobles by birth, who would most likely have become assimilated to the Thegns; freeholders, holding land in common where it had not yet come under the suzerainty of a lord (this same class of freemen degenerated under various circumstances and with varying tenures into villeins, or dependent cultivators, under lords); and absolute slaves, consisting originally probably of the conquered race, and added to by criminals and outlaws, or others who had lost their rights as freemen.