There was a kingdom of Elmet in Yorkshire, and even till the tenth century one of Bamborough. The same facts might easily be shown of Eastanglia[[268]], Essex and Northumberland, were it necessary; but enough seems to have been said to show how numerously peopled with kings this island, always fertilis tyrannorum[[269]], must have been in times whereof history has no record. As a chronicler of the twelfth century has very justly said, “Ea tempestate venerunt multi et saepe de Germania, et occupaverunt Eástangle et Merce sed necdum sub uno rege redacti erant. Plures autem proceres certatim regiones occupabant, unde innumerabilia bella fiebant: proceres vero, quia multi erant, nomine carent[[270]].”
From all that has preceded, it is clear that by the term King we must understand something very different among the Anglosaxons from the sense which we attach to the word: one principal difference lies indeed in this, that the notion of territorial influence is never for a single moment involved in it. The kings are kings of tribes and peoples, but never of the land they occupy,—kings of the Westsaxons, the Mercians or the Kentings, but not of Wessex, Mercia or Kent. So far indeed is this from being the case, that there is not the slightest difficulty in forming the conception of a king, totally without a kingdom:
“Solo rex verbo, sociis tamen imperitabat”[[271]]
is a much more general description than the writer of the line imagined. The Norse traditions are full of similar facts[[272]]. The king is in truth essentially one with the people; from among them he springs, by them and their power he reigns; from them he receives his name; but his land is like theirs, private property; one estate does not owe allegiance to another, as in the feudal system: and least of all is the monstrous fiction admitted even for a moment, that the king is owner of all the land in a country.
The Teutonic names for a king are numerous and various, especially in the language of poetry; many of them are immediately derived from the words which denote the aggregations of the people themselves: thus from þeód, we have the Anglosaxon þeóden; from folc, the Old Norse Fylkr; but the term which, among all the Teutons, properly denotes this dignity, is derived from the fact which Tacitus notices, viz. the nobility of the king: the Anglosaxon cyning is a direct derivative from the adjective cyne, generosus, and this again from cyn, genus[[273]].
The main distinction between the king and the rest of the people lies in the higher value set upon his life, as compared with theirs: as the wergyld or life-price of the noble exceeds that of the freeman or the slave, so does the life-price of the king exceed that of the noble. Like all the people he has a money value, but it is a greater one than is enjoyed by any other person in the state[[274]]. So again his protection (mund) is valued higher than that of any other: and the breach of his peace (cyninges handsealde frið) is more costly to the wrong-doer. He is naturally the president of the Witena-gemót and the ecclesiastical synod, and the supreme conservator of the public peace.
To the king belonged the right of calling out the national levies, the posse comitatus, for purposes of attack or defence; the privilege of recommending grave causes at least to the consideration of the tribunals; the reception of a certain share of the fines legally inflicted on evil-doers, and of voluntary gifts from the free men; and as a natural and rapid consequence, the levy of taxes and the appointment of fiscal officers. Consonant with his dignity were the ceremonies of his recognition by the people, and the outward marks of distinction which he bore: immediately upon his election he was raised upon a shield and exhibited to the multitude, who greeted him with acclamations[[275]]. Even in heathen times it is probable that some religious ceremony accompanied the solemn rite of election and installation: the Christian priesthood soon caused the ceremony of anointing the new king, perhaps as head of the church, to be looked upon as a necessary part of his inauguration. To him were appropriated the waggon and oxen[[276]]; in this he visited the several portions of his kingdom, traversed the roads, and proclaimed his peace upon them; and I am inclined to think, solemnly ascertained and defined the national boundaries[[277]],—a duty symbolical in some degree, of his guardianship of the private boundaries. Among all the tribes there appear to have been some outward marks of royalty, occasionally or constantly borne: the Merwingian kings were distinguished by their long and flowing hair[[278]], the Goths by a fillet or cap; among the Saxons the cynehelm, or cynebeáh, a circle of gold, was in use, and worn round the head. In the Ðing or popular council he bore a wand or staff: in wartime he was preceded by a banner or flag. The most precious however of all the royal rights, and a very jewel in the crown, was the power to entertain a comitatus or collection of household retainers, a subject to be discussed in a subsequent chapter.
The king, like all other freemen, was a landed possessor, and depended for much of his subsistence upon the cultivation of his estates[[279]]. In various parts of the country he held lands in absolute property, furnished with dwellings and storehouses, in which the produce of his farms might be laid up, and from one to another of which he proceeded, as political exigencies, caprice, or the consumption of his hoarded stock rendered expedient. In each villa or wíc was placed a bailiff, villicus, wícgeréfa, whose business it was to watch over the kings interests, to superintend the processes of husbandry, and govern the labourers employed in production; above all to represent the king as regarded the freemen and the officers of the county court.
The lot, share, or, as we may call it, τεμενος of the king, though thus divided, was extensive, and comprised many times the share of the freeman. We may imagine that it originally, and under ordinary circumstances would be calculated upon the same footing as the wergyld; that if the life of the king was seventy-two times as valuable as that of the ceorl, his land would be seventy-two times as large; if the one owned thirty, the other would enjoy 2160 acres of arable land. But the comitatus offers a disturbing force, which, it will hereafter be seen, renders this sort of calculation nugatory in practice; and the experience of later periods clearly proves the king to have been a landowner in a very disproportionate degree. In addition to the produce of his own lands, however, the king was entitled to expect voluntary gifts in kind, naturalia, from the people, which are not only distinctly stated by Tacitus[[280]] to have been so given, but are frequently referred to by early continental historians[[281]]. In process of time, when these voluntary gifts had been converted into settled payments or taxes, further voluntary aids were demanded, upon the visit of a king to a town or country, the marriage of a princess, or of the king himself, and other public and solemn occasions; from which in feudal times arose the custom of demanding aids from the tenants to knight the lord’s son or marry his daughter.
Another source of the royal revenue was a share of the booty taken in war, where the king and the freemen served together. The celebrated story of Clovis and the Soissons vase[[282]], proves that the king received his portion by lot, as did the rest of his army; but there is no reason to doubt that his share as much exceeded that of his comrades, as his wergyld and landed possessions were greater than theirs.