[477]. Hincmar, c. 30.
[478]. These persons were in the strictest sense of the word προβούλοι, and their acts προβουλεύματα. No doubt their body comprised the principal officers engaged in the administration of the State.
[479]. Hincmar, c. 33.
[480]. “Sed nec illud praetermittendum, quomodo, si tempus serenum erat, extra, sin autem intra, diversa loca distincta erant; ubi et hi abundanter segregati semotim, et caetera multitudo separatim residere potuissent, prius tamen caeterae inferiores personae interesse minime potuissent. Quae utraque seniorum susceptacula sic in duobus divisa erant, ut primo omnes episcopi, abbates, vel huiusmodi honorificentiores clerici, absque ulla laicorum commixtione congregarentur; similiter comites vel huiusmodi principes sibimet honorificabiliter a caetera multitudine primo mane segregarentur, quousque tempus, sive praesente sive absente rege, occurrerent. Et tunc praedicti Seniores more solito, clerici ad suam, laici vero ad suam constitutam curiam, subselliis similiter honorificabiliter praeparatis, convocarentur. Qui cum separati a caeteris essent, in eorum manebat potestate, quando simul, vel quando separati residerent, prout eos tractandae causae qualitas docebat, sive de spiritalibus, sive de saecularibus, seu etiam commixtis. Similiter, si propter aliquam vescendi [? noscendi] vel investigandi causam quemcunque vocare voluissent, et [? an] re comperta discederet, in eorum voluntate manebat.” Hincmar, c. 35.
[481]. “Interim vero, quo haec in regis absentia agebantur, ipse princeps reliquae multitudini in suscipiendis muneribus, salutandis proceribus, confabulando rarius visis, compatiendo senioribus, congaudendo iunioribus, et caetera his similia tam in spiritalibus, quamque et in saecularibus occupatus erat. Ita tamen, quotienscunque segregatorum voluntas esset, ad eos veniret,” etc. Hincmar, c. 35.
[482]. Easter and Christmas were usual times for the meetings of the Witan, and during the Mercian period, Cloveshoo was frequently the place where they assembled. Doubts have been lavished, upon the situation of this place, which I do not share. In 804 Æðelríc the son of Æðelmund was impleaded respecting lands in Gloucestershire, and stood to right at Cloveshoo. Now it is clear that trial to those lands could properly be made only in the hundred or shire where they lay; and as the brotherhood of Berkeley were claimants, and the whole business appertained to Westminster, I am disposed to seek Cloveshoo somewhere in the hundred of that name in the county of Gloucester, and therefore not far from Deerhurst, Tewksbury and Bishop’s Cleeve; not at all improbably in Tewksbury itself, which may have been called Clofeshoas, before the erection of a noble abbey at a later period gave it the name it now bears. Cod. Dipl. No. 186.
[483]. These were usual periods for holding the gemót. “Actum Wintoniae in publica curia Natalis Christi, in die festivitatis sancti Sylvestri,” etc. Cod. Dipl. No. 815. The old folcmót probably met three times in the year at the unbidden Ðing or placitum: so did the followers of the first Norman kings at least, and it is remarkable enough that the barons at Oxford should have returned to this arrangement, 42 Hen. III. anno 1258. “Fait a remembrer qe lez xxiiii ount ordeignez qe trois parlementz seront par an, le primere az octaues de seint Michel, le seconde lendimayn de le chaundelour, le tierce le primer iour de Juyn ceste asauoir trois semayns deuant le seint Johan; et a ces troiz parlementz vendront lez conseillours le roi eluz tut ne seyent il pas mandez pur vere lestat du roialme, et pur treter les communes busoignes du reaume et del roi ensement et autrefoitz ensembleront quant mester sera par maundement le roi.” Prov. Oxon., Brit. Mus., Cotton MS., Tiberius B. iv. folio 213. According to the later custom Parliaments were to be, at least, annual, and were frequently admitted so to be by law, until the Tudor times. See 5 Ed. II. an. 1311. “Nous ordenoms qe le Roy tiegne Parlement vne foiz par an ou deux fois se mestre soit, et ceo en lieu convenable,” etc.: which ordinance of the Lords was passed into an act of Parliament 4 Ed. III. cap. 14. Some years later the Commons petitioned the same king, that for redress of grievances and other important causes, “soit Parlement tenuz au meinz chescun an en la seson que plerra au Roy.” Rot. Parl. 36 Ed. III. n. 25. To which the king answered that the ancient statute thereupon should be held. This petition the Commons found it necessary to repeat fourteen years later, “qe chescun an soit tenuz un Parlement,” etc.: to which the answer was, “Endroit du Parlement chescun an, il y aent estatuz et ordenances faitz les queux soient duement gardez et tenuz.” Rot. Parl. 50 Ed. III. n. 186: and the same thing took place at the accession of Richard the Second. Rot. Parl. 1 Ric. II. n. 95. 2 Ric. II. n. 2. Triennial parliaments were, I believe, first agreed to by Charles the First.
[484]. The establishment of the Scabini or Schöffen in the Frankish empire was intended to relieve the freemen from the inconvenience of attending gemóts, which the counts converted into an engine of extortion and oppression.
[485]. It has always been a question of deep interest in this country, what persons were entitled to attend the Gemót: and in truth very important constitutional doctrines depend upon the answer we give to it. The very first and most essential condition of truth appears to me, that we firmly close our eyes to everything derived from the custom of Parliaments, under the Norman, the Angevine or the English kings: the practice of a nation governed by the principles of Feudal law, is totally irreconcileable with the old system of personal relations which existed under the earlier Teutonic law. The next most important thing is, that we use no words but such as the Saxons themselves used: the moment we begin to talk of Tenants in capite, Vavassors, Vassals, and so forth, we introduce terms which may involve a petitio principii, and must lead to associations of ideas tending to an erroneous conclusion. One of these fallacies appears to me to lie in the assertion that a landed qualification was required for a member of the Witena gemót. One of the most brilliant, if not the most accurate, commentators on our constitutional history, Sir F. Palgrave, has raised this question. According to his view no one could be a member of that singular body which he supposes the Anglosaxon Parliament to have been, unless he had forty híds of land, four thousand acres at least according to the popular doctrine. But this whole supposition rests upon a series of fine-drawn conclusions, in my opinion, without sound foundation, and totally inconsistent with every feeling and habit of Saxon society. The monkish writer of the history of Ely—a very late and generally ill-informed authority—says that a lady would not marry some suitor of hers, because not having forty híds he could not be counted among the Proceres; and this is the whole basis of this parliamentary theory,—proceres being assumed, without the slightest reason, to mean members of the witena gemót,—and the witena gemót to be some royal council, some Curia Regis, and not at all the kind of body described in this chapter. I confess I cannot realize to myself the notion of an Anglosaxon woman nourishing the ambition of seeing her husband a member of Parliament. The passage no doubt implies that a certain amount of land was necessary to entitle a man to be classed in a certain high rank in society: and this becomes probable enough as we find a landed qualification partially insisted on with regard to the ceorl who aspired to be ranked as a thane. But this is a negative condition altogether: it is intended to repress the pretensions of those who, in spite of their ceorlish birth, assumed the weapons and would, if possible, have assumed the rights of thanes. In the Saxon custumal, called “Ranks,” it is said:—“And if a thane throve so that he became an eorl, he was thenceforth worthy of eorl-right.” Thorpe, i. 192. On this the learned editor of the Ancient Laws and Institutes observes:—“It is to this law that the historian of Ely seems to allude in the following passage, and not to any qualification for a seat in the witena gemót, as has been so frequently asserted. ‘Habuit (sc. Wulfricus abbas) enim fratrem Gudmundum vocabulo, cui filiam praepotentis viri in matrimonium coniungi paraverat, sed quoniam ille quadraginta hidarum terrae dominium minime obtineret, licet nobilis esset [that is, a thane] inter proceres tunc nominari non potuit, eum puella repudiavit.’ Gale, ii. c. 40. If we refer to the Dooms of Cnut, c. 69, we shall see that the heriots of an eorl and of a lesser thane were in the proportion of from one to eight,—a rule which may have been supposed to have arisen from a somewhat similar relation between the quantities of their respective estates; and as the possession of five hides conferred upon a ceorl the rights of a thane, the possession of forty (5 × 8) in all probability raised a thane to the dignity of an eorl.” This opinion is only a confirmation of that which I had myself formed on similar grounds long before Mr. Thorpe’s work was published: and it was apparently so understood by Phillips before either of us wrote. See Angels. Recht. p. 114, note 317, Göttingen, 1825.
[486]. Leg. Æðelst. v. § 10.