I have no intention whatever of entering, in the present Chapter, into any examination of the minute details of our early English legal antiquities, still less into the controversies to which many points relating to them have given rise. I wish merely to give such a sketch of the political condition of England, at the time when England and Normandy began to influence each other’s affairs, as may make the narrative of their mutual intercourse intelligible. |The Old-English constitution survived the Norman Conquest.| What the constitution was under Eadgar, that it remained under William. This assertion must be taken with all the practical drawbacks which are involved in the forcible transfer of the crown to a foreign dynasty, and in the division of the greater part of the lands of the kingdom among the followers of the foreign King. But the constitution remained the same; the laws, with a few changes in detail, remained the same; the language of public documents remained the same. The powers which were vested in King William and his Witan remained constitutionally the same as those which had been vested in King Eadgar and his Witan a hundred years before. |The changes immediately following on the Conquest practical, not formal.| The change in the social condition of the country, the change in the spirit of the national and local administration, the change in the relation of the kingdom to foreign lands, were changes as great as words can express. The practical effect of these changes was a vast increase of the royal power, and the introduction of wholly new relations between the King and every class of his subjects. But formal constitutional change there was none. I cannot too often repeat, for the saying is the very summing up of the whole history, that the Norman Conquest was not the wiping out of the constitution, the laws, the language, the national life of Englishmen. The changes which distinguish the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries from the |Various causes of the ultimate results of the Conquest.| tenth and eleventh are not owing to any one cause. Many of them are merely the natural results of altered circumstances. Many of them are the work of lawgivers legislating for a new state of things, and, in not a few cases, confirming or restoring ancient English institutions under foreign names. Many of them are due to the ingenuity of lawyers whose minds were full of theories of law wholly alien to the principles of ancient English jurisprudence. All these changes were in some sort the final results of the Conquest. Some of them were actually caused by the Conquest; others were hastened by it. But of very few |Change in the monarchy from the old Teutonic to the later mediæval type.| indeed was it the direct and immediate cause. The English kingship gradually changed from a kingship of the old Teutonic type into a kingship of the later mediæval type. The change began before the Norman Conquest; it was hastened by the Norman Conquest; but it was not completed till long after the Norman Conquest. Such a change was not, and could not be, the work of one man or of one generation. But English kingship, like the other main features of the English polity, may be said to have fully put on its later form when the absent Edward was proclaimed in the place of his father, when the King was for the first time held to reign before he had received the rite which clothed him with the kingly office.
What then was the nature, and what was the origin, of that kingship, which the election—the constrained and unwilling election, but still the election—of the Witan of all England did, on Midwinter-day, eight hundred years back,[83] entrust to William, Duke of the Normans—from that day forward William, King of the English? That election transferred to him the same internal power over his own kingdom, the same external power over the dependent kingdoms, which had been held by Eadgar and Æthelred, and which an earlier forced election of a foreign conqueror had transferred to the hands of Cnut the Dane. |Summary of the growth of Wessex.| We have already traced the course of the events by which those powers, internal and external, grew up. Two Saxon chiefs, Ealdormen or Heretogan, formed a settlement on the |495.| south coast of Britain. After some years of successful |519.| warfare, they assumed the kingly title over their own tribe.[84] One of their successors incorporated some of the |823–828.| other Teutonic kingdoms with his own realm, and obtained an external supremacy over all the other Teutons in the island and over a portion of the Celts. A series of his |878–954.| successors, after long struggles, incorporated all the Teutonic states into one kingdom, and obtained an external Empire over all the Celtic states. The Ealdorman of the Gewissas thus gradually grew into the King of the West-Saxons, the King of the Saxons,[85] the King of the English, the Emperor of all Britain. The external aspect of this process, the dates of its several stages, I have already marked. I must now dwell a little longer on the real origin and nature of the various powers implied in those different descriptions of the ruler. Each stage marks an advance in the extent of territorial dominion; each stage marks also an advance in the amount of political authority enjoyed by the sovereign.
In following up these researches into our earliest political antiquities it is absolutely necessary to cast away all thoughts of modern political controversies. Time was when the whole fabric of our liberties was held to depend on the exact nature of the entry made by William the Bastard. Time was when supporters and opponents of parliamentary reform thought to strengthen their several positions by opposite theories as to the constitution of the Witenagemót. To this day a popular orator will sometimes think that he adds point to a declamation by bringing in Saxon Ælfred as the author of Trial by Jury, perhaps of every other privilege which other lands are held either not to possess or to have borrowed from ourselves. Every notion of this kind must be wholly cast away, if we would fairly and impartially learn what the institutions of our Teutonic forefathers really were. The lover of freedom certainly need not shrink from the inquiry. |The present shape of our political institutions not to be looked for in early times,| He will not indeed find that the finished systems of the nineteenth or of the seventeenth century were brought over ready made in the keels of Hengest and Horsa. He will not even find that they appeared in their perfect form in the Imperial Witenagemót of Eadgar the Peaceful. He will not find the legislative authority vested in a representative assembly to which every shire and borough sends the men of its choice. He will not find a King the freedom of whose will is at once hampered and protected by the tutelage of ministers responsible to that representative assembly. He will not find tribunals in which issues of law are determined by Judges independent alike of King and people, while issues of fact are determined by the people themselves in the form of jurors taken at haphazard from among them. Not one of these things will he find in the finished shape in which he is familiar |but the germs of later institutions may be traced from the beginning.| with them. But he will find the first principles from which all of them were derived; he will find the germs out of which all of them were developed. He will not find the relations of King, Lords, and Commons accurately balanced in the first Teutonic settlement on the shores of Kent. But he will find the rudiments of all three in days which were ancient in the days of Hengest. Let him go as far back as history or tradition throws any light on the institutions of our race, and he will find the germs alike of the monarchic, the aristocratic, and the democratic |Necessity of comparison with other Teutonic nations.| branches of our constitution. When positive evidence within our own land fails us, we must go for illustration and explanation, not to the facts, the theories, the controversies, of modern politics, but to the kindred institutions of the kindred nations of the mainland. Our Parliament is the true and lawful representative, by true and lawful succession, of the ancient Meeting of the Wise; but, if we would search out the origin and constitution of that Meeting of the Wise, we must go, not to the parliamentary traditions of the last six hundred years, but to the Marzfeld of the Frankish Kings, to the Landesgemeinden of Schwyz and Uri, to those yet earlier assemblies which still rise before us in full life in the pages of the first inquirer into the habits and institutions of our |Records of Teutonic Law from Tacitus onwards.| race. From the Germania of Tacitus onwards, through the Barbaric Codes, through the Capitularies of the Frankish Kings and Emperors, through the records of our own insular legislation from the Dooms of Æthelberht to the so-called Laws of Henry the First, we have a series of witnesses, showing what were the general principles of Teutonic law, and what were the particular forms which it took in particular times and places. In truth we may go beyond the records of our own immediate race. The early history of the Teuton is constantly illustrated by |Analogies with the Homeric Achaians.| the early history of his Aryan kinsmen, and the living picture of the old Achaians of Homer brings vividly before us many an institution of our own forefathers and many an incident of their early history.
The sketch which has been given in the last Chapter has shown that the Imperial lordship of all Britain, as held by Æthelstan and his successors, and even the supremacy of Wessex over the other English kingdoms, as established by Ecgberht, were institutions of comparatively late growth. But it must not be thought that even the full-grown local kingship, such as we find it held by Æthelberht in Kent and by Eadwine in Northumberland, was a thing which had been from the beginning. In the days of Tacitus some of the Teutonic tribes had kings and |Kingship not universal; government by Ealdormen or Heretogan.| others had not; in the time of Cæsar it would seem that kingship was the exception and not the rule.[86] The chieftains of the first settlers in our own island bore no higher title than Ealdorman or Heretoga. These two names express two different sides of the same office. The same man is Ealdorman as a civil ruler and Heretoga as a military chieftain. The former name survives in our |Force and history of the names.| language, but with sadly diminished dignity; the title which once expressed a rank which, among worldly dignities, was inferior to kingship alone, has taken refuge with a class of municipal magistrates, reaching downwards to the pettiest boroughs. The other name, always much more rarely in use, has dropped altogether out of our tongue, while, among the continental Teutons, the cognate word Herzog expresses a dignity the distinction between which and modern kingship must be drawn by the courtier and not by the politician. The name of Ealdorman is one of a large class; among a primitive people age implies command and command implies age; hence, in a somewhat later stage of language, the elders are simply the rulers, and the eldest are the highest in rank, without any thought of the number of years which they may really have lived. |Import of the change from Ealdormen to Kings.| It is not perfectly clear in what the authority or dignity of the King exceeded that of the Ealdorman, but it is clear that the title of King did carry with it an advance in both respects. Even the smallest kingdom was probably formed by the union of the districts of several Ealdormen. It is probable too that the King was distinguished by some religious sanction of heathen times, analogous to the ecclesiastical consecration which in later times the Church bestowed on kings, but not on princes of lower rank. It is certain that kingship required descent from the Gods; it may be that no such divine origin was |Instances in Britain and elsewhere.| needed by the mere Ealdorman. At all events, we find the change from Ealdorman to Kings taking place in more than one kingdom of Teutonic Britain, as well as among many of the kindred tribes on the mainland. We have already seen that the kingdoms of Northumberland and East-Anglia were formed by the union of several smaller |The West-Saxon Ealdormen become Kings. 495–519.| states whose rulers did not assume the royal title.[87] In Wessex the account is still more remarkable. Cerdic and Cynric entered the land with the title of Ealdorman; they did not assume kingship till after the arrival of fresh reinforcements, and till a decisive victory over the Welsh had strengthened their position in the country. During the whole period commonly called that of the Heptarchy the whole land was full of petty princes, some of whom undoubtedly bore the title of King, though others may have |Alleged return of Wessex to ealdormanship. 673–685.| reigned simply as Ealdormen. According to one account, the West-Saxons, as late as the seventh century, were for ten years without any common sovereign, while the Ealdormen or Under-kings reigned independently. This falling back on an older system has its parallels; there is one noted case in Lombard history; but it would be specially remarkable in a kingdom which had, from the beginning, greater |Distinction between King and Ealdorman from Ecgberht onwards.| unity than most of its fellows. But at least from the time of Ecgberht onwards there is a marked distinction between the King and the Ealdorman. The King is a sovereign, the Ealdorman is only a magistrate. The King may be hampered in the exercise of his power by the rights of his people or by the joint action of the great men of his realm; he may be chosen by his Witan and he may be liable to be deposed by them; still he is a sovereign, inasmuch as he does not rule by delegation from any personal superior. |Distinction between the Ealdorman and the dependent King.| He may even be, by original grant or more probably by commendation, dependent on some more powerful King; but even such dependence does not degrade him from his sovereign rank. His relation to his over-lord binds him to certain external services, but in his internal government he remains perfectly independent, with his power limited only by the laws of his own realm. But the Ealdorman has become distinctly a subject. He may hold the fullest royal power within his own district; he may be the descendant of former Ealdormen and even of former Kings; he may have a reasonable hope that he may hand on his dignity to his own children; still he is not a sovereign, but a subject. The King is supreme; the Ealdorman is simply sent by him. He is a Viceroy appointed by the King and his Witan; he is liable to be removed by them, and he is responsible to them for the exercise of his |Position of Ealdorman Æthelred in Mercia. 880–912.| authority. When the kingdom of Mercia was broken up, Ælfred entrusted the government of the part which fell to his share to his son-in-law Æthelred as Ealdorman. Æthelred was a man of royal descent; he exercised full royal power in Mercia; but he exercised it simply as a Governor General or Lord Lieutenant, the representative of a sovereign whose higher authority he carefully acknowledges |Case of Northumberland. 954.| in his charters.[88] So, when Northumberland was finally incorporated with England under Eadred, kingship was abolished, and the government was entrusted to a magistrate with the title of Ealdorman or its Danish |Contrary process in the Empire.| equivalent Earl.[89] By the exactly contrary process, Princes of the Empire, Dukes—that is, Ealdormen or Heretogan—and not only Dukes, but Counts, Margraves, Landgraves, all of them originally mere magistrates under the Emperor-King, have gradually grown into sovereign princes, and have at last, in several cases, ventured to assume the kingly title.[90]
The mere title of King seems to be comparatively recent among the Teutonic nations. It is not found in the earliest Teutonic prose writing, the Gothic Gospels; but in our own language it seems to be as old as the English settlements in Britain. Most of the questions which have arisen as to the etymology of the word only show how modern a thing scientific etymology is.[91] Cyning, by contraction King, comes from the same root as the word cyn or kin. And the connexion is not without an important meaning. The King is the representative of the race, |The Teutonic kingship national, not territorial.| the embodiment of its national being. A King, in the old Teutonic sense, is not the King of a country, but the King of a nation. Such titles as King of England or King of France are comparatively modern, and the idea which they express is equally so.[92] The Teutonic King is not the lord of the soil, but the leader of the people. The idea of the King of a country would have been hardly intelligible to our forefathers. Every King is King of a people. He is King of Goths, Franks, Saxons, wherever Goths, Franks, Saxons, may happen to settle. The Goths and their Kings moved from the Danube to the Tiber, and from the Tiber to the Tagus; but Alaric and Athaulf were equally Kings of the Goths, in whatever quarter of the world the Goths might be. So in our own island, the King is King of the West-Saxons, Mercians, or Northumbrians. |No names for the English kingdoms as distinguished from the people.| In truth the countries themselves, as distinguished from their inhabitants, can hardly be said to have any names. We talk for convenience’ sake of Wessex, Mercia, and so forth; but the correct description is the Kingdom of the West-Saxons, the Kingdom of the Mercians. |The King is King of the English (not of England), but Emperor of Britain.| So, when the West-Saxon King had swallowed up all his brethren, he became, not King of England, but King of the English. It is only in their Imperial character, in their character, not as chiefs of a nation, but as lords over all the dwellers within the isle of Britain, that our Kings ever assume the territorial description. Indeed |Name of England hardly known.| England itself has hardly yet found a geographical name. Englaland is a late form, scarcely found before the Danish Conquest. The common name for the land is the name of the people, Angel-cyn.[93]
The King’s power and dignity gradually grew. They grew by the mere extension of his dominions. The larger a prince’s territory becomes, the greater is the distance at which he finds himself from the mass of his subjects. He becomes more and more clothed with a sort of mysterious dignity; he comes to be more and more looked upon as something different from ordinary men, even from ordinary civil magistrates and military leaders. The prince of a small territory is known to all his people; he is, according to the character of his government, their personal friend or their personal enemy; if worthy himself and the descendant of worthy ancestors, he may command a strong feeling of clannish loyalty, but he cannot hedge himself in with the fence of any special divinity. A King who reigns over all Wessex is, in the nature of things, more of a King[94] than one who reigns only over Wight, and a King who reigns over all England is more of a King than one who reigns only over Wessex. Through this cause only, every fresh addition of territory added fresh power and dignity to the Kings of the House of Cerdic in their progress from the ealdormanship of a corner of Hampshire to the Imperial crown of the Isle of Britain. But this cause was by no means the only one. The growth of the royal power was greatly helped by another cause, fully to understand which we must go back to the very earliest accounts which we have of the political |Two elements in Teutonic political life, the free Community and the Comitatus.| institutions of the Teutonic race. From the very beginning of our history two opposing elements may be seen, one of which in the end gained the complete mastery over the other. The one is the original self-governing Teutonic community; the other is the King or other lord with his personal following.[95]
I said above that, in the very earliest glimpses of Teutonic political life, we find the monarchic, the aristocratic, and the democratic elements already clearly marked. There are leaders, with or without the royal title; there are men of noble birth, whose noble birth, in whatever the original nobility may have consisted, entitles them to pre-eminence in every way; but beyond these there is a free and armed people, in whom the ultimate sovereignty resides. Small matters are decided by the chiefs alone, great matters are submitted by the chiefs to the assembled nation.[96] Such a system is far more than Teutonic; it |Analogy of the Homeric Achaians,| is a common Aryan possession; it is the constitution of the Homeric Achaians on earth and of the Homeric Gods on Olympos. Zeus or Agamemnôn is King; he has his inner Council of great Gods or of great leaders; he has his general Assembly of all the divine race or of all the |and the historical Macedonians.| warriors who fought before Ilios.[97] The constitution of legendary Hellas remained the constitution of historical Macedonia; the assembly of the Macedonian nation—in war-time of the Macedonian army—remained, even under Philip and Alexander, the constitutional authority to decide on questions of succession to the throne and the tribunal in which was vested the power of adjudging a |The system a natural one in a small state.| Macedonian to death.[98] In short, the division of powers between the supreme leader, the Council, and the general Assembly, is the form into which the government of a small state or independent tribe almost necessarily throws itself. The hereditary prince and the aristocratic council may be exchanged for an elective chief magistrate and an elective council; but the division of powers remains the same, and in either case the ultimate sovereignty remains in the general Assembly, in the Agorê, the Ekklêsia, the Comitia, the Marzfeld, the Landesgemeinde. Of the nature and functions of such an assembly I shall have presently to speak, when I trace out the origin and nature of the Old-English Witenagemót. My present point is the distinction |Distinction of Eorl and Ceorl.| of orders in the state. Tacitus sets before us a marked distinction between the noble and the common freeman, that is, in Old-English phrase, between the Eorl and the Ceorl. The modern English forms of these words have altogether lost their ancient meaning. The word Earl, after several fluctuations, has settled down as the title of one rank in the peerage; the word Churl has come to be a word of moral reprobation, irrespective of the rank of the person who is guilty of the offence. But in the earlier meaning of the words, Eorl and Ceorl—words whose happy jingle causes them to be constantly opposed to each other—form an exhaustive division of the free members of the state. The distinction in modern language is most nearly expressed by the words Gentle and Simple. The ceorl is the simple freeman, the mere unit in the army or in the assembly, whom no distinction of birth or office marks out from his fellows. It must not be forgotten that, among the ancient English, as among all other Teutonic nations, the system of slavery was in full force. The ceorl therefore, like the ancient Greek citizen, though he might be looked down upon by an aristocratic class, was actually a privileged person as compared with a large number of human beings in his own city or district.[99] The origin of the distinction it is in vain to search after; the difference of the eorl and the ceorl is a primary fact from which we start; it is as old as the earliest notices of Teutonic institutions, and the only attempt at its explanation is to be found in an ingenious mythical story in a Northern saga.[100] Nor is it very easy to see in what the privileges of the eorl consisted, or how far they were secured by definite laws. |Analogy of the democratic Cantons of Switzerland.| Perhaps we may gain some light by looking at those communities which have preserved the old Teutonic system of government with the least alteration, the democratic |Traditional predominance of certain families.| Cantons of Switzerland.[101] There, amid the purest democracy in the world, where every adult freeman has a direct and equal vote in the Assembly, we still find that certain families, enjoying no legal privileges above their fellows, were long held in a kind of hereditary reverence, and that members of those families were preferred above all others to the highest offices in the state. Such were the houses of Reding in Schwyz, of Tschudi in Glarus, of the Barons of Attinghausen in Uri. The office of Landammann, the chief magistracy of the commonwealth, conferred by the yearly vote of the Landesgemeinde, commonly fell to the lot of members of these great houses; the same man was constantly re-elected year after year, and, when he died, |Comparison of old county families among ourselves.| his son was often elected in his place. Or without going so far from home, we may see what is essentially the same thing in the position of old county families, holding no legal advantages above their fellows, but which still enjoy an hereditary respect and preference at their hands. The eorl and the ceorl in fact answer pretty nearly to the esquire and the yeoman;[102] the modern artificial peerage is something quite different, and we shall presently perhaps see its beginnings.
The primitive Teutonic community is thus set before us as one consisting of eorls and ceorls, headed by a King, Ealdorman, or other leader, temporary or permanent, elective or hereditary. Such a community occupies its own territory, its Mark,[103] which territory consists of land of two kinds. There is the common land, either applied to the general use of the community or else held by individuals on such terms as the community, in its character of landowner, may think good to allow. There are also the particular possessions of individuals, portions assigned to them by common consent, which are the absolute property of their owners, held of no superior, but simply subject to such burthens as the community, in its political character, may think good to impose on its members. All this again is in no way distinctively Teutonic; it is the story of the ancient commonwealths of Greece and Italy over again. |Folkland or Ager Publicus.| The folkland[104] of England and the ager publicus of Rome are the same thing. The English and the Latin names translate one another; they both describe the land which still belongs to the community as a body, and of which individuals cannot be more than the occupiers.[105] The whole history of the Roman Agrarian Laws, so long misunderstood, turns simply on the regulation of this common land of the state. In the time of Cæsar it would seem that the whole territory of a Teutonic community was folkland; individuals could obtain no right in it beyond that of a yearly tenancy.[106] But the custom of allotting portions of the common stock in absolute property gradually advanced. A conquest like that of Britain would be highly favourable to the growth of the practice. When a band of Teutonic warriors took possession of a district and slew or dispossessed its former inhabitants, we cannot doubt that, besides |Allodial property, eðel or odal.| the stock reserved as common property, each man who had borne his share in the labours and dangers of the conquest would claim his reward in the absolute ownership of some portion of the conquered territory. The eorls, who would doubtless act as the leaders of the expedition, may well have received a larger allotment; but we may be sure that no freeman bearing arms went altogether without some share of the spoil. Such an allotment in absolute property, held of no superior, subject to nothing but the laws of the state, is called in different Teutonic dialects eðel, odal, or alod. It is an estate, great or small, which the owner does not hold either of the King or of any other lord, but in regard to which he knows no superior but God and the law.
These communities of freemen, among whom some had a pre-eminence in rank, and doubtless in wealth, but among |The primitive democracy gives way to the institution of| whom every freeman was a member of the state, form one of the elements of Teutonic life as we see it in its very earliest pictures. But those same pictures set no less strongly before us another element, which grew up alongside of the primitive democracy, and which was destined in the long run to supplant it more or less completely in nearly every Teutonic country. The ancient Teutonic community can now be seen in its purity only in a few of the smallest Swiss Cantons, and in several even of these[107] the ancient freedom had to be reconquered and was not uninterruptedly retained. Everywhere else it is as much as we can do to trace out some faint footsteps of the ancient system, such as we see in common lands, in some forms of communal institutions, in petty and half obsolete local |the Comitatus, the personal following of the Chiefs.| tribunals. The thing itself has given way to the other institution described by Tacitus, the Comitatus, the personal following of the chiefs. Every Teutonic King or other leader was surrounded by a band of chosen warriors, personally attached to him of their own free choice.[108] The chief and his followers were bound together by the strongest ties of mutual trust, and a lack of faithfulness on either side was reckoned among the most shameful of crimes. The followers served their chief in peace and in war; they fought for him to the death, and rescued or avenged his |Nature of the relation.| life with their own. In return, they shared whatever gifts or honours the chief could distribute among them; and in our tongue at least it was his character of dispenser of |The Hlaford and his Gesiðas.| gifts which gave the chief his official title. He was the Hlaford, the Loaf-giver,[109] a name which, through a series of softenings and contractions, and with an utter forgetfulness of its primitive meaning, has settled down into the modern form of Lord. His followers were originally his Gesiðas or Companions, a word which Ælfred uses to express the Latin Comes, but which must have dropped out of use |Origin of Þegnas (Thanes).| very early, as it is not found in the Chronicles. The Gesið or Companion became the Þegn (Thegn, Thane) or Servant, a change of name which might seem to imply a lowering of the nature of the relation, and which perhaps in a manner did so.[110] As Kings grew in power and dominion, it was not unnatural that a certain element of servility should find its way into the relation of the Comitatus, of which there is no trace in the primitive shape of that institution. The service of the King or other great lord conferred dignity even on the freeman. This is a notion altogether foreign to the ideas of republican Greece and Rome; but here again the primitive Teuton is but the |Homeric analogies.| reproduction of the primitive Achaian. The Homeric Kings have their comitatus, their Gesiðas or ἑταῖροι, their Þegnas or θεράποντες, free, noble, the cherished companions of their lords, but who do for those lords, without any loss of their own dignity, services which in later Greece none but slaves would have rendered. Eteôneus, Automedôn,[111] Mêrionês, the divine Patroklos himself, all appear in this relation; all are connected by this voluntary personal tie to a chieftain of higher rank. They are the very counterparts of Lilla, the faithful Thegn of Eadwine,[112] and of those true companions who fought to the death for |Contrast with the republican Greeks and Romans.| Cynewulf and Cyneheard.[113] The republican Greek knew no lord but the law.[114] He was a member of a civil community, and as a good citizen he obeyed the magistrates whom the choice of the community clothed with a limited and temporary power. But personal dependence on another human being seemed to him the distinguishing mark of the slave as opposed to the citizen. The republican Roman shared the same feeling; the early Cæsars were served by slaves or freedmen;[115] it was only as the Empire gradually grew into an avowed monarchy, and gradually assumed somewhat of the pomp of eastern kingship, that service about the person of the Emperor began to be looked upon as honourable in a man of free Roman birth. In the Teuton, as in the Homeric Achaian, the feeling of the civil community, though far from unknown, was less strong, and the tie of personal dependence was not felt to imply degradation. Indeed the Teuton carried the principle of personal service far further than the Roman ever did. It was held that purely menial services, when rendered to persons of higher rank, in no way degraded the ordinary freeman. It was even held that men of any rank short of the highest were actually honoured by rendering such services to those who were one degree higher than themselves. None of the old Cæsars ever held such lordly state |Developement of the principle in the later Empire and in modern Kingdoms.| as those among their successors who, while keeping hardly a trace of real Imperial power, still saw Kings and sovereign Dukes doing services about their person and household which, in the days of Augustus, would have been deemed a degradation to the meanest Roman citizen. So, among ourselves, offices about the person and household of the lord became high and honourable. The King’s dish-thegn, his bower-thegn, his horse-thegn or staller, all became great dignitaries of the kingdom, high in rank and influence,[116] as some of them, among all the changes in our institutions, still remain. There thus arose a new kind of nobility, nobility by service, the nobility which gradually attached |The Thegns supplant the old Eorls.| to the Thegns or Servants of Kings and Ealdormen; and this nobility gradually supplanted the elder nobility of immemorial descent.[117] Men pressed into the service of powerful leaders, till such service became the necessary badge of anything like distinguished rank. The Thegn, whose name might sound at first hearing like the exact opposite of the ancient Eorl, gradually took his place. The word Thegn became equivalent to noble or gentle. The King’s Thegns formed the highest class of gentry; the Thegns of Ealdormen and Bishops formed a lower class. Again to use a modern parallel, the ancient Eorl answers to the gentleman of ancient family, looked at simply as the descendant of certain forefathers and the owner of certain property; the Thegn answers to the gentleman, whether with or without such ancestry, looked at as holding, by royal commission, his place in the local magistracy and the local military force.
The Comitatus—the Thegnhood, as we may call it—thus |Effects of the growth of the Thegnhood.| grew and developed, and became the central institution of the state. With every advance of the kingly power—and every accession of territory, every free or constrained union of one district with another, implied an advance of the kingly power—the dignity of the King’s Thegns rose along with the dignity of their Hlaford. In one way |Favourable to individual Ceorls, but depressing to the class.| the change was a liberalizing one. The Ceorl could not become an Eorl, simply because a man cannot change his forefathers; but several ways were open to him of becoming a Thegn.[118] And now Thegn’s rank had become practically equivalent to Eorl’s rank. But though individual Ceorls might thus rise, there can be no doubt that the growth of the Thegnhood was on the whole depressing to the Ceorls, the simple freemen, as a class. The idea of the simple landman—I must borrow a word from our continental brethren, as the word citizen brings in quite other ideas—the undistinguished, but still free and, in a sense, equal member of a free community, gradually died out. The institution of the Comitatus, which in its origin was essentially voluntary, was pressed, as it were, upon all men, till at last it became a principle that no man should be without his lord. The freeman might choose his lord; he might determine to whom, in technical phrase, he should commend[119] |Commendation.| himself; but a lord he must have, a lord to act at once as |Every man must have a Lord.| his protector and as his surety, at once to watch over him and to give a guaranty for his good behaviour. The lordless man became a kind of outlaw, while in the older state of things the whole community would be lordless, except those who might of their own free will have entered |Depression of the Ceorls towards the period of the Conquest.| the Comitatus of some chief.[120] And there is little doubt that the condition of the Ceorls had greatly changed for the worse in the later times as we approach the Norman Conquest. Some classes among them seem to have been fast approaching to the condition of villainage or even to that of serfdom. This change is not peculiar to England; but it is the peculiar glory of England that the bondage of the mass of its people began later, and that it certainly ended sooner, than in any other western country where such bondage existed. The peasantry of Germany gradually sank into a lower state of serfdom than ours, and they remained in it much longer. The free peasantry of Russia did not sink into serfdom till villainage was nearly forgotten in England, but their deliverance from the yoke has been reserved for our own times.