The great question of monachism which convulsed the church and kingdom in the tenth century, was several times brought before the consideration of the witan, who, both clerical and lay, were very much divided upon the subject. This perhaps is a sufficient reason why no formal act of the gemót was ever passed on the subject, and the solution of the problem was left to the bishops in their several cathedrals: but no reader of Saxon history can be ignorant that it was frequently brought before the gemót, and that it was the cause of deep and frequent dissensions among the witan[[554]]. The festival days of St. Eádweard and St. Dúnstán were fixed by the authority of the witan on the 15th Kal. April and 14th Kal. June respectively[[555]]; and the laws contain many provisions for the due keeping of the Sabbath, and the strict celebration of fasts and festivals[[556]]. The levying of church-shots, soul-shots, light-alms, plough-alms, tithes, and a variety of other church imposts, the payment of which could not be otherwise legally binding upon the laity, was made law by frequently repeated chapters in the acts of the witan: these are much too numerous to need specification. They direct the amount to be paid, the time of payment, and the penalties to be inflicted on defaulters: nay, they actually direct the mode in which such payments when received should be distributed and applied by the receivers[[557]]. They establish, as law of the land, the prohibitions to marry within certain degrees of relationship: and lastly they adopt and sanction many regulations of the fathers and bishops, respecting the life and conversation of priests and deacons, canons, monks and religious women. On all these points it is sufficient to give a general reference to the laws, which are full of regulations even to the minutest details.
8. The king and the witan had power to levy taxes for the public service.
I have observed in an earlier chapter of this work that the estates of the freeman were bound to make certain settled payments. These may at some time or other have been voluntary, but there can be no doubt that they did ultimately become compulsory payments. They are the cyninges gafol, payable on the hide, and may possibly be the cyninges útware, and cyninges geban of the laws, the contributions directes by which a man’s station in society was often measured. Now in the time of Ini, we find the witan regulating the amount of this tax or gafol, in barley, at six pounds weight upon the hide[[558]]. Again, under the extraordinary circumstances of the Danish war under Æðelred, when it became almost customary to buy off the invaders, we find them authorising the levy of large sums for that purpose[[559]], and also for the maintenance of fleets[[560]]: these payments, once known by the name of Danegeld, and which in 1018 amounted to the enormous sum of 82,500 pounds[[561]], were after thirty-nine years’ continuance finally abolished by Eádweard[[562]].
9. The king and his witan had power to raise land and sea forces when occasion demanded.
The king always possessed of himself the right to call out the ban or armed militia of the freemen: he also possessed the right of commanding at all times the service of his comites and their vassals: but the armed force of the freemen could only be kept on foot for a definite period, and probably within definite limits. It seems therefore that when the pressure of extraordinary circumstances called for more than common efforts, and the nation was to be urged to unusual exertions, the authority of the witan was added to that of the king; and that much more extensive levies were made than by merely calling out the hereban or landsturm. And this particularly applies to naval armaments, which were hardly a part of the constitutional force, at all events not to any great extent[[563]]. Accordingly we find in the Chronicle that the king and the witan commanded armaments to be made against the Danes in 999, and at the same time directed a particular service to be sung in the churches. We learn distinctly from another event that the disposal of this force depended upon the popular will: for when Svein, king of the Danes, made application to Eádweard the Confessor for a naval force in aid of his war against Magnus of Norway, and Godwine recommended compliance, we find that it was refused because Earl Leófríc of Coventry, and all the people, with one voice opposed it[[564]].
10. The witan possessed the power of recommending, assenting to, and guaranteeing grants of lands, and of permitting the conversion of folcland into bócland, and vice versâ.
With regard to the first part of this assertion, it will be sufficient to refer to any page of the Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici: it is impossible almost to find a single grant in that collection which does not openly profess to have been made by the king, “cum consilio, consensu et licentia procerum,” or similar expressions. And the necessity for such consent will appear intelligible when we consider that these grants must be understood, either to be direct conversions of folcland (fiscal or public property) into bócland (private estates), beneficiary into hereditary tenure; or, that they contain licences to free particular lands from the ancient, customary dues to the state. In both cases the public revenue, of which king and witan were fiduciary administrators, was concerned: inasmuch as nearly every estate, transferred from folcland to bócland, became just so much withdrawn from the general stock of ways and means. Only in the case where lands were literally exchanged from one category into the other, did the state sustain no loss. Of this we have evidence in a charter of the year 858[[565]]. The king and Wulfláf his thane exchanged lands in Kent, Æðelberht receiving an estate of five plough-lands at Mersham and giving five plough-lands at Wassingwell. The king then freed the land at Wassingwell in as ample degree as that at Mersham had been freed; that is, from every description of service, or impost, except the three inevitable burthens, of military service, and repair of fortifications and bridges. And having done so, he made the land at Mersham, folcland, i. e., imposed the burthens upon it.
That this is a just view of the powers of the witan in respect to the folcland, further appears from instances where the king and the witan, on one part, as representatives of the nation for that purpose, make grants to the king in his individual capacity. In 847, a case of this kind occurred: Æðelwulf of Wessex obtained twenty hides of land at Ham, as an estate of inheritance, from his witan[[566]]. The words used are very explicit: “I Æðelwulf, by God’s aid king of the Westsaxons, with the consent and licence of my bishops and my princes, have caused a certain small portion of land, consisting of twenty hides, to be described by its boundaries, to me, as an estate of inheritance.” And again: “These are the boundaries of those twenty hides which Æðelwulf’s senators granted to him at Ham.” We learn that Offa, king of the Mercians, had in a similar manner caused one hundred and ten hides in Kent to be given to him and his heirs as an estate of bócland[[567]], which he had afterwards left to the monastery at Bedford. And this is a peculiarly valuable record, because it was only by conquest that Offa and his witan could have obtained a right to dispose of lands beyond the limits of his own kingdom. Between 901 and 909 the witan of the Westsaxons booked a very small portion of land to Ælfred’s son Eádweard, for the site of his monastery at Winchester[[568]]. In 963 we have another instance: Eádgár caused five hides to be given him at Peatanige as an estate of inheritance. The terms of the document are unusual: he says, “I have a portion of land,” etc., but he frees it from all burthens but the three, and renders it heritable. The rubric says: “This is the charter of five hides at Peatanige, which are Eádgár’s the king’s, during his day and after his day, to have, or to give to whom it pleaseth him best[[569]].” Again in 964, the same prince gave to his wife Ælfðrýð ten hides at Aston in Berkshire, as an estate of inheritance, “consilio satellitum, pontificum, comitum, militum[[570]].” It is obvious that in all these cases the grants were made out of public land, and were not the private estates of the king.
11. The witan possessed the power of adjudging the lands of offenders and intestates to be forfeit to the king.
This power applied to bócland, as well as folcland, and was exercised in cases which are by no means confined to the few enumerated in the laws. Indeed the latter may very probably refer to nothing but the chattels or personal property of the offender; while the real estate might be transferred to the king, by the solemn act of the witan. A few examples will make this clear.