The description of the oldest Teutonic constitution given by Cæsar (Bell. Gall. vi. 23) tells us, “In pace nullus est communis magistratus; sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt.” This seems to imply a government by Ealdormen as distinguished from one by Kings. Pagus is the Gau or Shire. So Dio (lxxi. 11), describing the German embassies to Marcus, says, οἱ μὲν κατὰ γένη, οἱ δὲ καὶ κατὰ ἔθνη ἐπρεσβεύσαντο. But Tacitus (Germ. 25, 44) seems to distinguish the tribes “quæ regnantur” from others. So Arminius was suspected of aiming at royalty (Ann. ii. 88); “Regnum adfectans, libertatem popularium adversam habuit.” So Bæda (v. 10) describes the Old-Saxons at the end of the seventh century. They had no King, but Satraps, that is doubtless Ealdormen; in war-time one Satrap was chosen as a common commander, but his superiority ended with the conclusion of peace. “Non enim habent regem iidem Antiqui Saxones, sed satrapas plurimos suæ genti præpositos, qui ingruente belli articulo mittunt æqualiter sortes, et quemcumque sors ostenderit, hunc tempore belli ducem omnes sequuntur, huic obtemperant; peracto autem bello, rursum æqualis potentiæ omnes fiunt satrapæ.” I have collected some other analogous cases in the Growth of the English Constitution, 172–3 (3rd ed.), and Comparative Politics, 414. In Zosimos (iv. 34) Athanaric is ἄρχων and Frithgar ἡγεμών. We may compare the description of the Alemanni at the battle of Strassburg in Ammianus, xvi. 12. Chnodomarius, the Bretwalda, so to speak, comes first, then some other chiefs by name; “Hos sequebantur potestate proximi reges numero quinque, regalesque decem et optimatum series magna.” Are the regales Æthelings, or are they subreguli, undercyningas, ealdormen?
With regard to the Kentishmen and the West-Saxons, the case seems perfectly clear. We read of the Jutes in the Chronicles, 449, “Heora heretogan wæron twegen gebroðra, Hengest and Horsa.” Here heretogan translates the duces of Bæda, i. 15. And of the West-Saxons in 495, “Her comen twegen ealdormen on Brytene Cerdic and Cynric his súnu.” Afterwards in 519 we find nearly the same words applied to them as to Ida, “Her Cerdic and Cynric Westseaxena rice onfengon.” The word rice I take to mark the change from ealdormanship to kingship. Between the two dates, in 514, is placed the reinforcement under Stuf and Wihtgar. The temporary change from Kings back again to Ealdormen is distinctly asserted by Bæda, iv. 12; “Quumque mortuus esset Coinvalch ... acceperunt subreguli regnum gentis, et divisum inter se tenuerunt annis circiter decem.... Devictis atque amotis subregulis, Cædualla suscepit imperium.” The Chronicles however give an uninterrupted succession of Kings during this time. In 672 Cenwealh dies; his widow Sexburh succeeds—a most rare case of a female reign. Then follow Æscwine in 674, Centwine in 676, Ceadwalla in 685. The change from Ealdormen to Kings in Mercia and East-Anglia is also plainly marked in the remarkable passage of Henry of Huntingdon which I quoted in page 26. And we may with all likelihood, as I there said, assert much the same of Northumberland. But between the case of Wessex and the case of Mercia or Northumberland there would be this difference. In Mercia, and probably in Northumberland, a number of small but quite independent kingdoms or ealdormanships were brought in under the power of a single conqueror, while in Wessex, though there were several Kings at once, a certain national unity was never lost. The change therefore from Kings back again to Ealdormen was possible in Wessex, where it was merely a change in the form of government; in Mercia it would have been the utter dissolution of every tie between the different parts of the country.
The history of the Lombards affords in this respect a singular parallel to the history of the West-Saxons. According to Paul Warnefrid (Gest. Langob. i. 14, ap. Muratori, i. 413), they were at first governed by Dukes, but afterwards they chose a King; “Nolentes jam ultra Langobardi esse sub ducibus, regem sibi ad ceterarum instar gentium statuerunt.” There is no reason to doubt the fact, though it is placed in a mythical age, and though Paul the Deacon is evidently thinking of Saul and the Hebrews. Indeed the change from Judges and “Dukes” to Kings among the Hebrews and Edomites is only another instance of the same law. At a later time, after their settlement in Italy, the Lombards fell back again from Kings to Dukes or Ealdormen. Paul Warn. ii. 32; “Post cujus [Cleph] mortem, Langobardi per annos decem regem non habentes sub ducibus fuerunt. Unusquisque enim ducum [there were thirty of them] suam civitatem obtinebat.” (See Allen, Royal Prerogative, 165.) In comparing these Lombard revolutions with those of the West-Saxons and Old-Saxons, it should not be forgotten that a considerable body of Saxons is said (Paul Warn. ii. 6) to have taken a part in the Lombard invasion of Italy. But parallels may be found in very distant times and places. Compare the twelve Kings of Egypt in the second Book of Herodotus.
That Heretoga and Ealdorman express the same office in different aspects, there can, I think, be no doubt. See Kemble, Saxons in England, ii. 126. I do not however understand Mr. Kemble’s meaning when he says; “The word Heretoga is nowhere found in the Saxon Chronicle, and, to the best of my remembrance, but once in the Charters.” Besides the passage above quoted, it is found in the Chronicles under the years 794 (of Danish pirates), 993 (of English commanders), 1003 (in a proverb), 1121 (of a Duke of Lotharingia). I have not looked through all the Charters for the purpose, but it is used in three successive grants of Bishop Oswald (Cod. Dipl. iii. 259, 260, 262) to express an Ealdorman of the Mercians.
We have just seen Heretoga used in English to translate the High-Dutch Herzog; but the Dukes and Counts of Gaul commonly appear in the Chronicles as Eorlas. Eorl however, as the later equivalent of Ealdorman, is also equivalent to Heretoga. Ælfred uses Heretoga to translate the Latin Consul, just as, in return, Gaulish Counts and English Ealdormen are constantly spoken of as Consules.
On the use of Ealdor, Ealdorman, Yldestan þegnas, to express simply rank and office without any reference to actual age, and for analogous uses in other languages, see Kemble, ii. 128; Heywood’s Ranks of the People, 53; Schmid’s Glossary under Eald, Ealdorman, &c.; Comparative Politics, 366. We have Ealdorapostol, Ealdorbiscop, and even, if I mistake not, Ealdordeofol. Kemble compares the use of Senatus, γέρων, πρεσβύτερος, and the feudal use of Senior, Seigneur. Πρέσβυς in the sense of Ambassador may be added to the list, and the Latin Patres, Patricius, express the same general idea. In the same spirit the Ealdorman’s deputy is called his Younger; see Ælfred’s Laws, 38, § 2 (Schmid, 92); “gif þises hwæt beforan cyninges ealdormonnes gingran gelimpe, oððe cyninges preôste,” etc. So Lewis the Pious (Waitz, iv. 262, 368) speaks to his officials of “vos et juniores vestri, juniores et ministeriales vestri.”
Hlaford, as equivalent, or perhaps something more than equivalent, to Ealdorman, seems peculiar to Æthelred of Mercia (see above, p. 382), though of course the word may be applied to an Ealdorman, as it is to Brihtnoth in the Song of Maldon, with reference to those persons to whom he was personally hlaford. Eorl, I need hardly say, supplanted Ealdorman in later times. The older English meaning of the word Eorl has been already explained. The later special sense in which it is equivalent to Ealdorman came in with the Danes, whose leaders had always been called Jarls. The governors of Northumberland, after the incorporation under Eadred, certainly bore the Danish title. Urm, Andcol, Uhtred (the ancestor of a long line of Northumberland Earls), Grim, and Scule, all seemingly Northumbrian chiefs, sign a charter of Eadred in 949 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 292) with the title of Eorl. The same title is applied to Oslac both in the Chronicles under 975 (“Oslac se mæra eorl”), and in the laws of Eadgar (Thorpe, i. 278), where the Earl Oslac seems to be pointedly distinguished from the Ealdormen Ælfhere of Mercia and Æthelwine of East-Anglia. So in the Chronicles for 992 “Ælfric ealdorman” (the well-known Ælfric, of whom more in Note CC) is no less pointedly distinguished from “Þored eorl.” But when the word Eorl is found in this sense in the Chronicles at an earlier date, it is always a sign of later insertion. (See Earle, p. 38.) Whether the title was in use throughout the Denalagu is less clear. Brihtnoth is called Eorl in the poem of Maldon; but this may be a poetical use. He is also called Ealdor in the wide sense in the poem itself, as well as Ealdorman in various documents and in the Chronicles. On the other hand the Chronicles constantly speak of Ealdormen, even in Danish districts like Lindesey; but this may be an accommodation to Southern language, and they do so even when speaking of Northumberland. In the purely Saxon districts there can be no doubt that the ancient title of Ealdorman went on uninterruptedly, till, under Cnut, Eorl gradually supplanted it everywhere. See p. 407.
That birth was of less importance in the case of an Ealdorman than in the case of a King appears from the well-known words of Tacitus (Germ. 7), “Reges ex nobilitate, Duces ex virtute sumunt.” This is most curiously illustrated in the Song of Brunanburh, where seven earls of the Danes are killed and five young kings (“Fife lagon On ðæm campstede Ciningas geonge”). The King ruling “ex nobilitate” might be young; the Earl ruling “ex virtute” was likely to be old.
On this whole subject of the origin and growth of kingship see the Authorities and Illustrations to Allen on the Royal Prerogative.
It is enough for my purpose that the word Cyning is closely connected with the word Cyn. (See Allen, Royal Prerogative, 176; Kemble, i. 153.) That the two words are of the same origin, as is shown by a whole crowd of cognates, cynebarn, cynecyn, cynedom, cynehelm, cyne-hlaford (used in the Chronicles, a. 1014, as equivalent to gecynde hlaford), cynelice, cynerice, cynestol. (I copy from Mr. Earle’s Glossarial Index.) In all these words cyn has the meaning of royal. What little I venture to say on the remote Aryan affinities of the word I have said in Comparative Politics, 450, Growth of the English Constitution, 172.
The modern High-Dutch König is an odd corruption; but the elder form is Chuninc. The word has never had an English feminine; Queen is simply cwen, woman, wife, the same as the Greek γυνή, but in Wessex, from the days of Beorhtric to those of William, Cwen most rarely occurs (Chron. 855 and Chron. Petrib. 1043, though in both these passages it may simply mean wife); Hlæfdige (see above, p. 575) is the regular title.
Sir Francis Palgrave’s attempt (ii. cccxli.) to derive the word from a Celtic root Cen (head), to say nothing of other objections, could not account for the use of the word among the Teutonic nations on the Continent. Still more ludicrous is the notion of the King being the canning or cunning man, an idea which could have occurred only to a mind on which all Teutonic philology was thrown away. It is however as old as Sir Thomas Smith, who, in the Commonwealth of England (pp. 9, 10) says, “That which we cal in one sillable king in English, the old Englishmen, and the Saxons, from whom our tongue is derived, to this day call in two sillables, cyning, which whether it commeth of cen or ken, which betokeneth to know and understand, or can, which betokeneth to be able, or to have power, I cannot tel.”
The connexion of Cyning with Cyn is closely analogous to the connexion of the word Þeoden (the Gothic Þiudans) with Þeod (see Kemble, i. 152) and that of Drihten with Driht. In all these cases the ruler takes his name from those whom he rules.
The origin of the word is curiously illustrated in Cardinal Pole’s exposition of the nature of kingship, quoted in Froude’s History of England, iii. 34. “‘What is a king?’ he asks. ‘A king exists for the sake of his people; he is an outcome from Nature in labour [partus naturæ laborantis]; an institution for the defence of material and temporal interests.... In human society are three grades—the people—the priesthood, the head and husband of the people—the king, who is the child [populus enim regem procreat], the creature, and minister of the other two.’”
One can hardly suspect Pole of any Teutonic scholarship, but if he had not the true derivation of the word king before his eyes, the coincidence is remarkable. Not very unlike is the speech of Philip Pot, Great Seneschal of Burgundy in the States General of Tours in 1484. “La royauté est une dignité et non un héritage. Dans l’origine, le peuple souverain créa des rois pour son utilité.” De Cherrier, Histoire de Charles VIII. i. 76.
It is most curious to see how very modern are those territorial titles which, for some centuries past, European Kings have thought good to assume. In Greek we always find a national sovereign described by the national style; it is always Λακεδαιμονίων, Μακεδόνων, even Περσῶν and Μήδων, βασιλεύς. In Livy (xxxi. 14, xxxv. 13) we no doubt read of “Antiochus rex Syriæ” and “Ptolemæus rex Ægypti.” But this is of course, because the kingship of the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ was so utterly unnational that any but a territorial description would have been absurd. In fact it is a description and not a title. As a description of this kind, the words “Rex Franciæ” actually occur as early as the tenth century. (Flodoard, A. 924.) But this is not a formal title; it is merely the annalist’s vague way of describing or pointing at a prince who had as yet no formal title. If one Rudolf is “Rex Franciæ,” in the very same year another Rudolf is “Cisalpinæ rex Galliæ,” which certainly never was the formal title of any man. The truth is that, throughout the ninth and tenth centuries, the various Frankish Kings had no formal title beyond the vague “Rex Francorum,” common to all of them. The Chroniclers had therefore to describe each King as they might, just as the sons of Charles the Great are indifferently called “Rex super Aquitaniam,” or “Italiam,” Ann. Laur. 781 (Pertz, i. 32); “Rex in Aquitania,” Ann. Egin. 781, and “Aquitaniæ Rex” (ib. 813). But when the French Kings adopted a formal title, Rex Francorum Christianissimus was the style down to the end of the line of Valois. Franciæ et Navarræ Rex came in with Henry of Bourbon. When the ancient style was revived in 1791, and again in 1830, many people seem to have thought it a strange innovation.
In both Empires, down to the last days of each, the style is always “Romanorum Imperator,” Ῥωμαίων βασιλεύς. It is only late in the thirteenth century, and when a prince has to be described by his dominions, that we find such a title as the Trapezuntine style πιστὸς βασιλεὺs καὶ αὐτοκράτωρ Ἀνατολής, Ἰβήρων, καὶ Περατείας. (Finlay, Mediæval Greece and Trebizond, 370.) In earlier days Charles the Great was “Patricius Romanorum.”
In England it would seem that Cnut, and Cnut alone before the Norman Conquest, did call himself “King of England.” In the Preface to his Laws (Thorpe, i. 358; Schmid, 250) he is called “Cnut cyningc, ealles Englalandes cyningc, and Dena cyningc and Norðrigena cyningc.” In the letter from Rome in Florence (1031) he calls himself “Rex totius Angliæ et Denemarciæ et Norreganorum et partis Suanorum.” In a doubtful charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 50) he is “Rex totius Angliæ regni atque Danorum;” “Cing ealles Englelandes and ealre Dene.” In two most doubtful charters (Cod. Dipl. iv. 25, 41) he is “Kining of Ænglelande,” and “Rex totius Angliæ et Danmarchiæ et Norwagiæ et magnæ partis Swavorum.” In other charters he is either “Rex Anglorum” (as Florence calls him when speaking in his own person) or else he assumes the Imperial style.
It has been suggested that Cnut took up his territorial style as being a conqueror of the land, not a native monarch of the people. But the above instances show that, though he fluctuates between the two forms, he makes no consistent distinction between his hereditary and his acquired kingdoms. Moreover Cnut, like William, was formally elected King, and he was even less likely than William to assume any title which would be offensive to his English subjects. This makes one inclined to look a little further. In the most authentic documents, Anglia, Englaland, does not occur without a qualification; the words are “totius Angliæ,” “ealles Englalandes.” Is this description so distinctly and unmistakeably territorial as the later forms, “Rex Angliæ,” “King of England”? The totius, the ealles, strikes me as making a difference. It may show that what is meant is, not “King of England” in the later sense, but “King over the whole land of the English,” as distinguished from Cnut’s earlier and narrower dominion while the kingdom was divided between him and Eadmund. But anyhow Cnut stands alone before the Norman Conquest in the use of this style. After the Conquest “Rex Angliæ” begins to creep in, but at first very rarely. William himself is all but invariably “Rex Anglorum.” Richard is the first King who is systematically “Rex Angliæ” in his charters, and even he is “Rex Anglorum” on his seal. And during his reign his mother stuck to the old style “Regina Anglorum.” The final innovation of “Rex Angliæ” on the seal is due to King John. See Allen, p. 51.
In everything, in short, belonging to our old days it is the people who stand forth and not the mere land. In fact, except in the case of old geographical names like Gaul and Britain, the land can hardly be said to have a being or a name apart from the people. The land is simply called by the name of the people, like Lokroi and Leontinoi in Greek geography, like Franken and Hessen in Germany. So in our Chronicles, in the year 774, we read “gefuhton Myrce and Cantwara,” where Myrce is clearly the people; but in 796 we read “hine læddon on Myrce,” where we must take Myrce for the country. On the use of the name Englaland I shall speak in Note T.
On this modern notion of “territorial sovereignty,” see Maine, Ancient Law, 103. He remarks that “territorial titles were not unknown, but they seem at first to have come into use only as a convenient mode of describing the ruler of a portion; the king of a whole tribe was king of his people, not of his people’s lands.” This is, I suppose, the “rex super Aquitaniam,” and the like.
On the subject of Commendation a good deal will be found in Hallam’s Middle Ages (i. 114, edition 1846), and still more in the Supplementary Notes (p. 118; and see specially Waitz, iv. 204). By the time of Æthelstan a lordless man seems to have become something exceptional, and to have needed special legislation (see Æthelstan’s Laws in Schmid, 132. “Be hlâfordleâsum mannum”). The passages from the Capitularies quoted by Hallam imply the necessity of every man seeking a lord, though they leave to him the right of choosing what lord he will seek. There is another remarkable Capitulary of Lewis the Pious in the year 815 (Baluz. i. 552), in which the Emperor grants the power of Commendation, as an accustomed right of his own subjects, to the Spanish Christians who had taken refuge within his dominions from the oppression of the Saracens; “Noverint tamen iidem Hispani sibi licentiam a nobis esse concessam ut se in vassaticum commitibus nostris more solito commendet. Et si beneficium aliquod quisquam eorum ab eo cui se commendavit fuerit consequutus, sciat se de illo tali obsequium seniori suo exhibere debere quale nostrates homines de simili beneficio senioribus suis exhibere solent.” This is remarkable as showing the distinction between the personal Commendation of a man to his lord and the grant of a feudal benefice by that lord. The grant is not necessarily implied, but it is looked on as something which is likely to follow. “Commendati homines” are often mentioned in Domesday, and there are numberless phrases which come to the same thing, though the exact words are not used. There is one very curious story in Hertfordshire (136 b), where a certain Godwine held lands for a life or lives of the church of Westminster, but after his death his widow illegally transferred the lordship of the lands to Eadgifu the Fair. “Hanc terram tenuit Godwinus de ecclesia Sancti Petri; non potuit vendere, sed post mortem ejus debebat ad ecclesiam redire, ut hundreda testatur; sed uxor ejus cum hac terra vertit se per vim ad Eddevam pulcram, et tenebat ea die qua Edwardus rex fuit vivus et mortuus.” This Godwine who could not sell his land is distinguished from various “homines” of Eadgifu “qui potuerunt vendere.” See more in vol. v. p. 885.
This process of seeking a lord we find described in the Laws of Ælfred (37, Schmid 90), where the proper formalities are described; “Gif mon wille of bold-getale in oðer bold-getæl hlâford sêcan, dô þæt mid þæs ealdormonnes gewitnesse þe he ǽr in his scire folgode.” And this phrase of seeking or choosing a lord is the very phrase which is used to express the international commendation of Wales and Scotland to the English King. In the Chronicles, 922, we read of Eadward, “and þa cyningas on Norþ Wealum, Howel and Cledauc and Ieoþwel, and eall Norþ Weallcyn hine sohton him to hlaforde.” And in the famous passage which describes the great commendation of 924 (see above, p. 576) the words are, “hine geces þa to fæder and to hlaforde Scotta cyning,” &c.
Of the use of the word as applied on an international scale there is an early instance in the letter of Pope Stephen to Pippin (Waitz, iii. 84; cf. 87), where he says, “tam ipsi Spoletani quamque etiam Beneventani omnes se commendare per nos a Deo servatæ excellentiæ tuæ cupiunt.” But the best setting forth of the doctrine between sovereign princes is to be found in the words which Dudo (128 D) puts into the mouth of Hugh the Great, when he explains to young Richard the need of seeking a lord; “Hugo vero Magnus intelligens animadvertisse utrumque affectum voluntatis suæ, aperta cordis sui intentione dicitur respondisse: ‘Non est quippe mos Franciæ, ut quislibet princeps duxve constipatus abundantius tanto milite perseveret cunctis diebus taliter in dominio ditionis suæ, ut non aut famulatu voluntatis suæ, aut coactus vi et potestate, incumbat acclivius Imperatori, vel regi, ducive: et si forte perseveraverit in temeritate audaciæ suæ, ut non famularetur alicui volenter præcopiosa ubertate sufficientiæ suæ; solent ei rixæ dissentionesque atque casus innumerabilis detrimenti sæpissime accidere. Quapropter si placuisset Richardo duci tuo nepoti seipsum flectere ut militaret mihi, vestro saluberrimo consilio sponte filiam meam connubio illi jungerem; et terræ, quam hereditario jure possidet, continuus defensor et adjutor contra omnes adessem.’”
I cannot forbear transcribing the passage in which Mr. Kemble (Saxons in England, i. 183) sums up the general results of the growth of the Thegnhood. “As the royal power steadily advanced by his assistance, and the old, national nobility of birth, as well as the old, landed freeman sunk into a lower rank, the gesið found himself rising in power and consideration proportioned to that of his chief: the offices which had passed from the election of the freemen to the gift of the crown, were now conferred upon him, and the ealdorman, duke, geréfa, judge, and even the bishop, were at length selected from the ranks of the comitatus. Finally, the nobles by birth themselves became absorbed in the ever-widening whirlpool; day by day the freemen, deprived of their old national defences, wringing with difficulty a precarious subsistence from incessant labour, sullenly yielded to a yoke which they could not shake off, and commended themselves (such was the phrase) to the protection of a lord; till a complete change having thus been operated in the opinions of men, and consequently in every relation of society, a new order of things was consummated, in which the honours and security of service became more anxiously desired than a needy and unsafe freedom; and the alods being finally surrendered, to be taken back as beneficia, under mediate lords, the foundations of the royal, feudal system were securely laid on every side.”
The supplanting of an older by a newer form of nobility has several parallels in history. The distinction between patricii and nobiles at Rome has some analogies to the distinction between eorlas and þegnas in England. The plebeian could not become patrician, but he could become noble; and this plebeian nobility, derived from the possession of curule magistracies, answered to our thegnhood in being a nobility of office, though in this case it was office conferred by the people and not by a King or other lord. See more in Comparative Politics, 246–270. On the growth of the official comitatus in the courts of the Frankish Kings and Emperors see the chapter of Waitz (iii. 410), “Der Hof und die Reichsversammlung.” He comments on the difference between this and the earlier comitatus; but both are instances of the same principle. See also iv. 278 of the same work, “Dabei wird immer auch auf Abstammung, Ansehn des Geschlechtes Werth gelegt; aber ein bestimmter rechtlicher Vorzug war damit nicht verbunden.” He has collected a great number of cases of the use of the word nobilis and other equivalent words in the Carolingian age, that is to say, just at the point when the old notion of nobility had come to an end and when the new one had not fully developed itself. In that immediate stage nobility means simply to have meant free birth, or at all events free birth combined with the possession of land.
I hope to say something more in my fifth volume about the tenure of land in England. I will here only give one or two specimens of the form of these grants.
In 977 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 157) King Eadward makes a grant to Ælfric (which Ælfric?) in these terms; “Aliquam partem terræ juris mei perpetuali donatione libenter concedo cuidam fideli meo ministro [þegn] vocitato nomine Ælfric, ob illius amabile obsequium dignatus sum largiri.” He is to have it in full property, with the right of bequest, and to hold it free of all services “exceptis istis tribus, expeditione, pontis arcisve munitione.” So Æthelred in 982 (Cod. Dipl. iii. 188) grants “ruris quamdam sed communem portionem, quam hujus nationis indigenæ usitato æt Stoce nuncupant onomate, cuipiam mihi pisticâ [one thinks of the πιστοί in the Persians of Æschylus] devotione subnixo vocitamine Leofrico.” The grantee is to have full power of bequest, and to hold the land “ab omni terrenæ servitutis jugo liberum, excepta expeditione, pontis arcisve restauratione.” Fearful curses are imprecated on any one who shall disturb the grantees in their possessions.
Bishops make grants to their own thegns of Church lands to be held for one, two, or three lives, and then to revert to the Church. The Codex contains a great many grants of this kind made by Bishop Oswald, the grant being made by leave of the King and of the reigning Ealdorman of the Mercians. In one, in English, which immediately follows the grant to Ælfric (iii. 159), we find the trinoda necessitas duly excepted. “Sie hit ǽlces þinges freoh búton ferdfare and walgeworc and brygcgeworc and cyrcanláde.”
The consent of the Witan is marked in the grant to Leofric by the words “his testibus consentientibus quorum inferius nomina caraxantur.” So Eadgar (iii. 153) makes a grant “optimatum meorum utens consilio,” &c., &c.
The Codex Diplomaticus is of course the great storehouse of knowledge on this subject.
I conceive that my notions about the Witenagemót do not differ essentially from those of Mr. Kemble. The process by which a primary Assembly in a large country naturally shrinks up into a small official or aristocratic body could not be better drawn out than they are in his chapter on the Witenagemót (Saxons in England, ii. 191 et seqq.). He winds up (p. 195) with the words; “At what exact period the change I have attempted to describe was effected, is neither very easy to determine nor very material. It was probably very gradual, and very partial; indeed it may never have been formally recognized, for here and there we find evident traces of the people’s being present at, and ratifying the decisions of the Witan.” In a note on the next page Mr. Kemble goes on to refute the strange notion of Sir Francis Palgrave (ii. ccclxxxvi.) that a property qualification was needed for a seat in the Witenagemót. In fact Mr. Kemble’s remarks are all that could be wished, if he had only brought forward more clearly some of those “evident traces” to which he cursorily alludes.
I will try, partly at least, to fill up the gap. Take for instance the very beginning of recorded English legislation, the Dooms of Æthelberht (Thorpe, i. 2); “Gif cyning his leode to him gehated.” Leode here surely means people in the widest sense. So in the Preface to the Laws of Wihtræd (p. 36); “Ðær þa eadigan fundon mid ealra gemedum þas domas.” The great men propose, the people accept, just as in the concilia described by Tacitus. So the deposition of Sigeberht in 755 (of which more in the next Note) was, according to Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 729 C), who is clearly following some earlier writer, the act of the whole West-Saxon people; “Congregati sunt proceres et populus totius regni, et provida deliberatione et unanimi consensu omnium expulsus est a regno. Kinewlf vero, juvenis egregius de regia stirpe oriundus, electus est in regem.” So the “Decretum Episcoporum et aliorum sapientum de Kancia,” addressed to Æthelstan (Thorpe, i. 216), whatever its exact bearing, is drawn up in the name of the “thaini, comites [eorlas], et villani [ceorlas].” So the “Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ” (p. 228, Schmid, 156) are confirmed by all, “ægder ge eorlisce ge ceorlisce,” in the Latin “comites et villani.” So in the Chronicles a popular element is often mentioned in the election of Kings and in other national acts. In 959 Eadgar was, according to Florence, “ab omni Anglorum populo electus.” In 1016 Eadmund is chosen by the Witan and the citizens (burhwaru) of London. So in 1036 Harold the First is chosen by most of the thegns north of Thames and by the liðsmen or sailors of London. In 1041 “all folk chose Eadward to King.” So in 1066 Harold took the kingdom “as men chose him thereto.” So in 1048, when Godwine proposes to interfere in the wars of the North, “hit þuhte unræd eallum folce.” So too Godwine, on his return in 1052, makes his speech in the Mycel Gemót “wið Eadward cyng his hlaford and wið ealle landleodan.” So with regard to a local body, in the account of a Scirgemót of Herefordshire in Cod. Dipl. iv. 54, though the thegns (“ealle ða þegnas on Herefordscíre”) are mentioned in a special way, yet the final judgement is given by the popular voice—“be ealles ðæs folces leáfe and gewitnesse.” With regard to the action of the citizens of London, the case no doubt simply was that they, being on the spot, could assert this right, which others at a distance could not do. But it must be remembered that till the eleventh century the Witan did not commonly meet either in London or in any other of the chief towns. Possibly, when a Gemót was held at Winchester or Exeter, the citizens of those towns would hold the same position as the Londoners did when the Gemót was held in their city. Something of this kind seems to be referred to in a charter of Æthelstan (Cod. Dipl. ii. 194) of the year 934—a charter remarkable on other grounds from the vast number of signatures, including four vassal Kings, and evidently passed in what was indeed a Mycel Gemót. It is given “in civitate opinatissima [sic] quæ Winteceaster nuncupatur, tota populi generalitate sub alis regiæ dapsilitatis ovanti.” The citizens both of London and of Winchester seem to be mentioned as electors of Kings as late as the accession of Stephen. (See W. Malms., Hist. Nov. i. 11.) Even as late as 1461, Edward Earl of March was elected King by a tumultuous assembly of the citizens of London, and the citizens were foremost in the revolution which placed Richard the Third on the throne in 1483. These elections are fully described in Hall’s Chronicle, pp. 253, 372. (See Growth of English Constitution, 204.) And that of Edward comes out well in the Collections of a London Citizen (Camden Society), 215, where we read how the Earl of March “enteryed unto the cytte of London, and there he toke uppon hym the crowne of Inglond by the avysse of the lordys spyrytual and temporalle, and by the elexyon of the comyns. And so he be-gan hys rayne.” These are plainly the last traces of the right which the citizens had more regularly exercised in the elections of Eadmund Ironside and of Harold the son of Cnut.
These passages seem distinctly to imply that every freeman had a theoretical right to attend. Some of the expressions used might be applied without impropriety to a representative assembly; but they could not be applied to a body not representative, unless, in theory at least, it took in the whole nation. These passages prove also that some form of demanding the assent of the people at large was always retained. But the retention of some such usage is almost proved, without going any further, by the custom which still exists of presenting the King at his coronation for the acceptance of the people (see vol. iii. Appendix E). This is at once the last trace of our elective monarchy, and the last vestige of the ancient right of the Teutonic freeman to take a direct part in the affairs of the nation. We may see the working of the same process on the continent in what Waitz, iii. 56, says of the Frankish Assemblies under the Karlings; “Das Volk, oder die Grossen, welche auf den allgemeinen Versammlungen im Namen des Volkes handelten.” But in the quasi-official language of Einhard (Vita Kar. 1) it is “publicus populi sui conventus,” and the Continuator of Fredegar (117 a, 752) speaks of the change of dynasty as made “cum consilio omnium Francorum.”
The charter of 934, which I have just quoted, starts a point of quite another kind, namely the question as to the attendance of the vassal Celtic princes in the English Witenagemót. On this I have said something in p. 132. The attendance of the Welsh Kings is not uncommon, especially in the reign of Æthelstan. They often sign charters with the titles of subregulus or undercyning. See the signatures, ranging from 930 to 956 (Cod. Dipl. ii. 170, 173, 193, 196, 203, 292, 304, 326, 413; v. 199, 208, 217), of the subreguli Howel, Morcant, Owen, Juthwal, Tudor, Syferth, Jacob, Jukil, and Wurgeat. The Cumbrian signatures are rarer, but we have those of Eugenius in 931 (v. 199) and 937 (ii. 203), and of Malcolm in 966 and 970 (ii. 413, iii. 59). The signature of Kenneth of Scotland is attached to three charters (Cod. Dipl. ii. 413, iii. 69; Palgrave, ii. ccli. cclii.), but the authenticity of all three has been suspected. Still his presence at the great ceremony at Chester shows that the appearance of the King of Scots in the Witenagemót was a thing that might be looked for. The treaty between Richard the First and William the Lion, by which the novel claims of Henry the Second were given up, contains elaborate rules for the reception of the King of Scots on his way to the King’s court as due of ancient custom (Palgrave, ii. cccxxxix.).
Mr. Kemble (ii. 219) formally reckons among the powers of the Witan that they “had the power to depose the King, if his government was not conducted for the benefit of the people.” He adds that “it is obvious that the very existence of this power would render its exercise an event of very rare occurrence.” He then goes on to discuss the case of Sigeberht at length, and adds, “I have little doubt that an equally formal, though hardly equally justifiable, proceeding severed Mercia from Eádwig’s kingdom, and reconstituted it as a separate state under Eádgár; and lastly from Simeon of Durham we learn that the Northumbrian Alchred was deposed and exiled, with the counsel and consent of all his people.”
This last Northumbrian case is worth notice, as showing that a perfectly legal proceeding may lurk under words which at first sight seem to imply mere violence. The two Chronicles, Worcester and Peterborough, which record the deposition of Ealhred in the year 774, use the words, “Her Norðhymbra fordrifon heora cyning Alchred of Eoforwic on Eastertid, and genamon Æþelred Molles sunu him to hlaforde.” So Florence, “Festi paschalis tempore Northymbrenses regem suum Alhredum, Molli regis successorem, Eboraco expulere, filiumque ejusdem regis Molli, Æthelberhtum, in regem levavere.” This might suggest the notion of a mere revolutionary act; but the words of Simeon bring out the legal character of the deposition much more strongly; “Alcredus rex, consilio et consensu suorum omnium, regiæ familiæ ac principum destitutus societate, exilio imperii mutavit majestatem.” With this new light before us, we better understand the force of the words of the Chronicles, “of Eoforwic on Eastertid.” It is plain that Ealhred was deposed by the Easter Gemót of his kingdom assembled in his capital. Simeon then goes on to speak of Æthelred as “tanto honore coronatus;” and it should be noticed that in 779, when he records the expulsion of Æthelred himself, richly deserved as it was by the treacherous murder of three of his Ealdormen, he does not use the same legal language; “Ethelredo expulso de regali solio et in exilio fugato, cogitur mœstos inire modos miserasque habere querelas. Elfwald vero filius Oswlfi, Ethelredo expulso, regnum Northanhymbrorum suscepit.” So in the Chronicles (778), “And þa feng Alfwold to rice and Æþeldred bedraf on lande.”
To turn to the case of Sigeberht, I have already quoted (see above, p. 400) the words of Henry of Huntingdon, in whose account the legal action of the nation stands out most clearly; but the consent of the Witan appears also in all the other accounts. In the Chronicles (755) we read, “Her Cynewulf benam Sigebryhte his mæge his rices and Wæst-seaxna witan for unrihtum dædum butan Hamtunscire.” So Florence, “Cynewlfus, de prosapia Cerdici regis oriundus, auxilium sibi ferentibus West-Saxonicis primatibus, regem illorum Sigebertum, ob multitudinem suorum iniquorum factorum, regno exterminavit, et loco ejus regnavit; unam tamen provinciam, quæ Hantunscire dicitur, eidem concessit.” And even Æthelweard (ii. 17), who seems to tell the story with a certain royalist leaning against Cynewulf, witnesses to the same facts; “Post decursum unius anni ex quo Sigebryht regnare cœperat, cujus regnum invadens Cynulf abstraxit ab eo, et sapientes totius partis occidentalis facietenus traxit cum eo propter inconditos actus supradicti regis; nec illi derelicta pars potestatis nisi provincia una quæ Hamtunscire nuncupatur.” In this case, as in the case of Ealhred, we may remark the different colourings given to the same action. The deposition of Sigeberht was clearly a legal act, but it might be spoken of as an “invasio,” just as equally legal acts later in our history could be also spoken of as “invasiones.”
With regard to the separation of Mercia from the kingdom of Eadwig, spoken of by Mr. Kemble, the whole of Eadwig’s reign is shrouded in such darkness that, as it forms no part of my immediate subject, I have rather avoided going into it. But at any rate that separation would present one point of difference from any of the other cases. As Eadgar seems to have been Under-king of the Mercians from the death of Eadred, the act by which the Mercians threw off the authority of Eadwig was rather the rejection of the supremacy of an over-lord than the deposition of an immediate sovereign.
Of the other cases which I have mentioned in the text, those which come within the range of my History I have discussed in their proper places. Among the later cases, some may have expected to see the names of Henry the Sixth and Charles the First. But neither of these Kings were, in strictness of speech, deposed. By deposition I understand an act by which a King, whose right to be King is acknowledged up to that time, is, by virtue of such act, declared to be no longer King. This was not exactly the case with Henry the Sixth. When Richard Duke of York claimed the crown in preference to Henry, a compromise was made, by which Henry was to keep the crown for life and Richard was to become his heir-apparent. It was therefore the Yorkist theory that Henry reigned by virtue of this agreement, and that, when he afterwards, as was alleged, broke the agreement, the Crown was thereby forfeited and the Duke became de jure King. (See Growth of the English Constitution, p. 149.) Yet, as we have seen, a kind of popular election was thought needful to confirm the rights of his son. Charles the First, it is still more clear, was not deposed. He was tried and executed being King, a process of which English history supplies no other example. The depositions of Edward the Second and Richard the Second are too plain to need comment. James the Second was clearly deposed in Scotland; whether the vote against him in England could be strictly called a vote of deposition is less clear. On the character of this famous vote, logically so absurd, yet practically so thoroughly adapted to all the circumstances of the time, see Macaulay, Hist. of Eng. ii. 623. So on the vote of the Scottish Estates, iii. 285.
I have spoken in the text of that milder form of deposition by which the King was removed from his authority without being formally removed from his office. Of this process the simpler forms of our early constitution will hardly supply an instance, unless we see an approach to it in the engagement (see p. 368) entered into by Æthelred on his restoration to rule in all things by the advice of his Witan. But it was done in the cases of Henry the Third, Edward the Second, and Richard the Second; in the two latter cases the act was a kind of forewarning of the severer punishment which was to follow.
It must be remembered that throughout this argument I am dealing with the legal right of deposition, not with the justice of its exercise in any particular case. As to Sigeberht, and as to Ealhred too, both of them clearly deserved their fate, but how far in either case the West-Saxon and Northumbrian Witan may have been influenced by any personal intrigues of Cynewulf or Æthelred, who play in the two stories respectively the part of Henry of Bolingbroke or William of Orange, is not to the purpose. So too with the later fates of the deposed Kings, with the certain murder of Edward, the all but certain murder of Richard, the constitutional question has nothing to do. The deposed prince was let off the most easily in the earliest case. Sigeberht, deposed from the kingdom of Wessex, was allowed to retain Hampshire as Under-king. Having murdered one of his Ealdormen, he was banished altogether by Cynewulf, the new head King, and he was afterwards killed by a private enemy.
For instances of deposition among other Teutonic nations see Kemble, ii. 221. The most famous case of all, the deposition of Childeric and election of Pippin, was somewhat spoiled by the application to the Bishop of Rome about a matter which it clearly lay within the power of the Frankish nation to settle without his interference.
Some passages bearing on the election of Kings by the Witan, that is in truth by the people, have been already quoted (see above, p. 602). At every stage of my history I shall have to call attention to the way in which the right of free election was carried out in practice. But it is worth while to point out how long the old Teutonic feeling survived, and at how late a time it was still formally put forth as a constitutional principle. Nowhere can a better exposition of the ancient doctrine as to the election of Kings be found than in the speech which Matthew Paris (Chronica Majora, ii. 454, ed. Luard) puts into the mouth of Archbishop Hubert at the election of King John. Whether the speech is Hubert’s or Matthew’s matters little; or rather, if it be Matthew’s own, it is the more valuable, as carrying on the ancient tradition still later. No one has any right to be King unless he be chosen by the whole people of the land on account of his merits (“nullus prævia ratione alii succedere habet regnum, nisi ab universitate regni unanimiter, invocata Spiritus gratia, electus”), but if any member of the royal family be worthy, he is to be preferred to any one else (“verum si quis ex stirpe regis defuncti aliis præpolleret, pronius et promptius in electionem ejus est consentiendum”). The preamble is excellent, but the practical inference is strange, namely that Duke John, for his many virtues, should be chosen King. With this speech, made by, or attributed to, an English Archbishop, we may compare the similar doctrine of elective monarchy laid down by a French Archbishop, Adalbero of Rheims, at the election of Hugh Capet in 987; “Non ignoramus Karolum fautores suos habere, qui eum dignum regno ex parentum collatione contendant. Sed si de hoc agitur, nec regnum jure hæreditario adquiritur, nec in regnum promovendus est nisi quem non solum corporis nobilitas, sed et animi sapientia illustrat, fides munit, magnanimitas firmat. Legimus in annalibus, clarissimi generis Imperatoribus ignavia ab dignitate præcipitatis, alios modo pares, modo impares successisse.” (Richer, iv. 11.) So again the combination of the elective and hereditary principles, as found in all the old Teutonic kingdoms, is well set forth by Rudolf Glaber, i. 3; “Totius regni primates elegerunt Ludovicum, filium videlicet prædicti regis Caroli, unguentes eum super se regem hæreditario jure regnaturum.” We shall find as nearly as possible the same words in an important passage of our Chronicles (A. 1042).
It should be carefully borne in mind that, throughout the times with which we are dealing, two systems of geographical nomenclature were in use, we might say in rival use. The ancient names, Roman or ante-Roman, still survived, as many of them survive still, as purely geographical descriptions, and the new names, the names of states and kingdoms named after their inhabitants, were still only in process of forming. I have said something of this in an earlier Note (see above, p. 596) with regard to the nomenclature of our own island; the nomenclature of continental countries we shall find to be still more confused. But the two classes of names can be clearly distinguished. Gallia and Britannia were doubtless in their origin names derived from a people, no less than Francia and Anglia; but, in the times with which we have to deal, Gallia and Britannia had become purely geographical terms, simply expressing a certain extent of territory on the map, while Francia and Anglia (if the latter name was used at all) were political names, expressing the territory occupied or ruled by Franci and Angli. The shifting of names of this latter class are frequent and well known. The modern kingdom of Saxony, for instance, has not an inch of ground in common with the Saxony which was conquered by Charles the Great, and the various meanings of the word Burgundy have become a proverb among the learned and a touchstone to bewray the half-learned. Another cause of confusion is that the ancient geographical names were constantly used, not only in their straightforward geographical sense, but also by way of fine writing, in which case they are constantly used affectedly, and often inaccurately. This is especially the case with Richer. Take for instance the opening of his second book, where he describes the political parties of his own day in the geographical language of Cæsar, “Galli namque Celtæ cum Aquitanis Hugonem Rotberti regis filium, Belgæ vero Ludovicum Karoli sequebantur.” Here we get a real distinction of race and language. The Celtæ and Aquitani are the nations of the Romance tongues, the forerunners of the future French and the future Provençal, while the Belgæ mark the still Teutonic part of the kingdom, whose inhabitants Richer elsewhere (i. 47) distinctly calls Germani. But none would guess this from the antiquated phraseology which he chooses. A still more remarkable instance of Richers way of misusing antiquated terms will be found in a passage which seems to have misled Sir Francis Palgrave. Sir Francis, describing the campaign of 944 (see p. 225) says (ii. 543), “Among other vassals or dependants ... Otho was joined by Conrad ‘King of Geneva,’ under which style we might have some difficulty in recognizing the King of Burgundy, yet the title is not undeserving of notice, as embodying the very few remaining recollections of a kingdom practically effaced from historical memory.” This I do not understand. As Sir Francis gives no references, I cannot undertake to deny that Conrad may be called “King of Geneva” somewhere, but he certainly is not so called in any of the most obvious authorities for this campaign. Widukind does not mention him at all. In Flodoard (A. 946) he is, as usual, “Cisalpinæ Galliæ rex.” In Richer (ii. 53) he is “Rex Genaunorum.” (Did Sir Francis read “Genevanorum”?) It is strange geography of Richer to place the Genauni in Burgundy, but we find again in ii. 98, “urbem Vesontium, quæ est metropolis Genaunorum, cui etiam in Alpibus sitæ Aldis Dubis præterfluit.” The ecclesiastical province of Besançon answers almost exactly to Transjurane Burgundy. In iii. 86 the same Conrad is, still more wonderfully, made into “Rex Alemannorum.” Richer, in short, despised the geography of his own age, and used his obsolete names without much discretion.
But this affectation extends to better writers than Richer. Lambert himself constantly uses the word Galliæ in a vague sort of way, or rather as equivalent to Germany. Thus, for instance, we hear of the church of Fulda as one of the chief churches of the Gauls “illius monasterii opes usque ad id temporis florentissimæ erant cunctisque Galliarum ecclesiis eminebant.” A 1063), while Mainz (A. 1074) is “caput et princeps Gallicarum urbium.” And the word is used in the same sense in several other passages under those two years. So, as I have implied in discussing Richer’s description of Conrad, the name “Gallia Cisalpina,” as used by Flodoard, always, I cannot conceive why, means the kingdom of Burgundy or some part of it (see A. 924, 937, 939, 946). Of these the third is the passage referred to in p. 203. M. Gaudet in his note on Richer takes the “Hugo Cisalpinus” there spoken of for Hugh the Black, one of the Princes of the ducal Burgundy who is mentioned by Flodoard the next year. But there can be no doubt that the person meant is Hugh of Provence, the famous King of Italy.
But the great source, not so much of confusion as of vague and strange descriptions or rather indications of kingdoms and states, arises from the fact that none of the states formed by the division of the Carolingian Empire, none at least of those north of the Alps, had as yet won for itself a geographical name. There were old national names in abundance, Saxony, Bavaria, Aquitaine, Britanny, but there were no general names to express the kingdoms of Charles, Lothar, and Lewis, respectively. Each King was a King of the Franks; he reigned over so much of the old Frankish dominion as he could get hold of; he had no distinct and recognized national or territorial title; he and his kingdom had to be described, or rather pointed out, as they might be. We nowhere see this better than in the way in which our own Chronicles under the year 887 record the division of the Empire after the deposition of Charles the Third. The four kingdoms are clearly marked out, but not one of the four has a territorial name; the three which lie north of the Alps are simply pointed to geographically; “Earnulf wunode on þam lande be æstan Rine; and Hroðulf þa feng to þam middel rice, and Oda to þam west dæle, and Beorngar and Wiða to Langbeardna lande.” This is at least clearer than the description given by Erchempert (Hist. Langobardorum, 11; Pertz, iii. 245) of the earlier division between the sons of Lewis the Pious; “Ab hoc Francorum divisum est regnum, quoniam Lutharius Aquensem et Italicum, Ludoguicus [this form, with the gu for the w, is worth noting philologically] autem Baioarium, Karlus vero, ex alia ortus genitrice, Aquitaneum regebat imperium.” Here, in the hopelessness of finding a name for Lothar’s kingdom, we find an unique “regnum” or “imperium Aquense,” while Saxony and the rest of Germany are merged in Bavaria, and Neustria is merged in Aquitaine. Another way of distinguishing kingdoms and their inhabitants was to describe them by the names of their rulers, as in the passage of Widukind (i. 29) quoted in p. 155; “Unde usque hodie certamen est de regno Karolorum stirpi et posteris Odonis, concertatio quoque regibus Karolorum et Orientalium Francorum super regno Lotharii.” Here “regnum Lotharii” is of course Lotharingia, Lothringen, Lorraine, though it must be remembered that the name takes in a far wider territory than the modern duchy. So Gregory the Seventh (Jaffé, Mon. Greg. 465) speaks of “regnum Lotharii” and Bonitho (ib. 631) of “Lothariorum regnum.” And in the continuation of Regino (Pertz, i. 618) “Lothariensi regnum” is opposed to Gallia Romana. But it should also be noticed that the Western Kingdom also has no name; its Kings are “reges Karolorum;” it was quite a chance that France was not permanently called Carolingia to match Lotharingia. So in Widukind (iii. 2) the Western kingdom is “regnum Karoli,” though in the reign of a Lewis; so, still more distinctly, in the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium (i. 55, iii. 50; Pertz, vii. 421, 481) the inhabitants of France and Lotharingia are distinguished as “Karlenses” and “Lotharienses.” So in the same work (i. 116; Pertz, vii. 452) “Robertus rex Karlensium” is coupled with “Richardus rex Rotomagensium.” And strangest of all, in the Chronicle of the Counts of Flanders (Corp. Chron. Fland. i. 86) the Emperor Henry the Third is spoken of as “Rex Lothariensis, qui et Cæsar Imperator Augustus appellatus est.” (So in our own Chronicle, 1126, “þone kasere Heanri of Loherenge;” in the next year we hear of “ðes Caseres wif of Sexlande.”) This way of describing countries by their rulers is very common just at this time, when divisions were springing up for which there were no received geographical names. Thus Germany is sometimes “Terra Heinrici” (Flodoard, 933); Flanders and Normandy are, in our own Chronicles, “Baldwines land” and “Ricardes rice.” But Lotharingia, perhaps as the name of the most purely artificial division of all, is the only name of the class which has survived.
This same passage leads us to the way which (except in the case of Lotharingia, a kingdom which almost always bore the name of its founder) became more usual, that of distinguishing the kingdoms and their inhabitants by some distinctive epithet of race or language, or by some word which simply points to them geographically. The difficulty, as I have already hinted, arises from the still abiding notion of the existence of a single Frankish kingdom, however many might be the Kings among whom its administration was divided. None of the Kings, nor yet the subjects of any of the Kings, would give up their right to be at least one of the Kings of the Franks, to be at least part of the people of the Franks. While such a state of feeling was rife, it was impossible that any King or kingdom should bear any title distinctly and permanently recognized. A King most commonly describes himself simply as “Rex;” any more particular description might have been construed either as a surrender of his own rights or as an infringement of the rights of some other prince. Thus it has often been remarked that in the act of election (see Pertz, Legg. i. 547, cf. the election of Lewis at p. 558) by which Boso was raised to the kingship of Burgundy—the “middel rice” of our Chronicles—he is simply made King without any particular title, and without any particular geographical extent being traced out for his kingdom. It was not so while the Frankish dominions remained undivided. In the days of the early Karlings, the King had a title and his dominions had a name. His dominions were Francia; he himself was the Rex Francorum. In Einhard, Francia means the whole territory occupied or ruled by the Franks and their King. This comes out very strongly in the Life of Charles, c. 2; “Pater ejus [Pippini] Karolus, qui tyrannos per totam Franciam dominatum sibi vindicantes oppressit, et Sarracenos Galliam occupare tentantes duobus magnis prœliis, uno in Aquitania apud Pictavium civitatem, altero juxta Narbonam apud Birram fluvium devicit.” Here, with the strictest precision, Gallia is a part of Francia and Aquitania is a part of Gallia. And this will be found to be the common use throughout the Life and Annals. So the Monk of Saint Gallen (Gesta Karoli, i. 10; Pertz, ii. 735) defines Francia in the widest sense to take in “omnes Cis-alpinas provincias.” But the name Francia gradually came to be confined to two portions of the original Francia, one on each side of the Rhine, those where the name still survives alike in France and in Franken or Franconia. These two had therefore to be distinguished by various epithets. Thus we find “Francia Teutonica” opposed to “Francia Latina” and “Francia Orientalis” opposed to “Francia Occidentalis.” Sometimes “Francia” and “Gallia” are opposed, as in Ann. Xant. 877 (Pertz, ii. 234), and the use is not uncommon in the Annals of Fulda, as 880 (i. 393). See too specially Bruno, Bell. Sax. 36 (Pertz, v. 342), and Liudprand (Antapodosis, i. 14, 16), who talks of “Franciam quam Romanam dicunt,” and elsewhere (iii. 20) of “Francorum genus Teutonicorum.” See also Widukind, i. 16, 29; Wipo, Vit. Chuon. 1, 6, 27, and especially c. 2, where he describes the Rhine as the frontier of “Gallia” and “Germania,” and reckons up the nations in both countries which formed the kingdom of Conrad, among which are “Franci Orientales,” and “Franci qui supra Rhenum habitant,” an unusual distinction. See also Otto of Freising, Gest. Frid. i. 34, where he speaks of “Orientalis Francia,” and Ann. vii. 5, where he distinguishes “Franci Romani et Teutonici.” In the Annals of Saint Vedast, 887 (Pertz, ii. 203), we find “Franci Australes” and “inferiores;” but in those Annals “Franci” and “Francia” commonly mean the Western kingdom. The word is sometimes used in this sense in the phrases “rex Franciæ” and “regnum Franciæ” (see above, p. 595, and Dudo, 97 D). But Francia, as used by writers within the Western kingdom, commonly means the Parisian duchy, and it is only through the successive conquests of the Parisian Kings that the word France has gained that modern meaning which now takes in the old Western kingdom and something more. The ordinary meaning of the word Francia in Flodoard and Richer is plain from such passages as Flodoard, A. 923, 926. It means the dominion of the “Dux Francorum,” whether he be “Rex Francorum” as well or not. In the latter passage, we find a Danegeld levied “per Franciam et Burgundiam,” where Burgundia does not mean the kingdom of Boso, but the duchy which did homage to the West-Frankish King. So in the Vita Hludowici, 49, we find “Francia, Burgundia, Aquitania, et Germania.” Francia, in short, as used by these writers, excludes Lotharingia and all the Burgundies; it excludes Aquitaine, Normandy, and Britanny; and it has further to be distinguished as “Latina” or “Occidentalis” from the other Francia east of the Rhine.
In the like sort, we read in the Chronica Regum Francorum, ap. Pertz, iii. 214; “Hic [at the deposition of Charles the Third] divisio facta est inter Teutones Francos et Latinos Francos.” But it is remarkable to trace how early, especially within the Western Francia, the word Franci began to mean the Western as opposed to the Eastern Franks. Thus the Astronomer (ap. Pertz, ii. 617) speaks of Lewis the Pious as “monitus tam a Francis quamque a Germanis,” and again (p. 633), “diffidens Francis, magisque se credens Germanis.” So Liudprand (Antapod. i. 14, 17) uses “Rex Galliæ” and “Rex Francorum” as synonymous. And the word seems to be used in the same sense by Nithard, i. 5, ii. 3, in the former of which passages Francia seems to be opposed to “universi qui trans Renum morabantur.” So Wipo (31) distinguishes the Western kingdom as “Galliæ Francorum,” and Lambert (1073), unlike Bruno, allows the title of “Rex Francorum” to the Western potentate. Still in Germany Franci kept its natural meaning down to the days of Frederick Barbarossa. “Sic emitur a Francis Imperium,” says Otto of Freising (Gest. Frid. ii. 22). Yet elsewhere (i. 58) he speaks of “Rex Francorum” and “Rex Franciæ” in the other sense. So William of Malmesbury (i. 68), in a passage the whole of which is worth study, says, “Lotharingi et Alemanni, et cæteri Transrhenani populi qui Imperatori Teutonicorum subjecti sunt, magis proprie se Francos appellari jubent; et eos quos nos Francos putamus, Galwalas antiquo vocabulo [did William know the force of the walas?] quasi Gallos nuncupant. Quibus et ego assensum commodo,” &c. Elsewhere (iv. 360) he says, “Romanum Imperium prius ad Francos, post ad Teutones, declinavit;” he yet more strangely adds, “orientale apud Persas semper durat.”
In other cases the words Franci or Francia are altogether left out. “Occidentales” alone is used as equivalent to West-Frankish or French, and “Orientales” is used as equivalent to German. Perhaps the most remarkable case of this use is to be found in the treaty between Charles the Simple and Henry of Saxony in 921 (Pertz, Legg. i. 567). Here the two Kings of the Franks are geographically distinguished, as “Gloriosissimus rex Francorum Occidentalium, Karolus” and “Magnificentissimus rex Francorum Orientalium Heinricus.” But in the text of the treaty, where Charles speaks in his own person, he says, “Ego Karolus, divina propitiante clementia, rex Francorum Occidentalium, amodo ero huic amico meo regi Orientali Heinrico amicus.” We find the same use in Dudo, 130 B, and in a very remarkable passage of Richer (iv. 12, 13), where he gives two descriptions of the extent of the Western kingdom in the tenth century. Hugh Capet is made King over “Galli, Britanni, Dahi [doubtless Dani, i.e. the Normans], Aquitani, Gothi, Hispani [the county of Barcelona], Wascones.” He then associates his son Robert in the kingdom—“a Mosa fluvio usque Oceanum Occidentalibus regem præfecit et ordinavit.” So in the extract from Thietmar in p. 175, “Occiduæ partes” is the German writer’s description of the kingdom of Charles the Simple. In other passages a King is simply, as it were, pointed at. In Flodoard, 938, Otto is “Rex Transrhenensis,” in Richer, i. 20, his father is simply “Heinricus Transrhenensis,” and in Dudo, 130 B, where the Germans are still “Orientales,” their King is still “Rex Transrhenanus.” So “Rex Orientalis” is opposed to “Rex Galliæ,” Ann. Xant. 873 (Pertz, ii. 235). More curious still is the description of no less a person than Hugh the Great in Flodoard, A. 960; “Richardus, filius Willelmi Nortmannorum principis, filiam Hugonis trans Sequanam [or ‘Transsequani’] quondam principis, duxit uxorem.” So in 946 our Eadmund is “Edmundus rex transmarinus.” See above, p. 565. This way of describing suggests some of those curious mediæval verbs, “transfretare,” “transpadare,” and the like.
Germany in fact was longer than any of the other countries of which we have been speaking in getting a true territorial name for itself, and a true territorial title for its sovereign. We have seen several instances of the use of Germania; but then Germania, like Gallia, is a purely geographical name, and the Eastern kingdom took in a large part of Gallia. The kingdom itself is commonly “Regnum Teutonicum” (Lambert, 1073), a phrase which is the more remarkable when we find it coupled with the geographical name Italia, as in Gregory’s anathema in Muratori, iii. 336. Lewis the son of Lewis the Pious is repeatedly called “Rex Germanorum” by Prudentius of Troyes (Pertz, i. 441, 443), and “Rex Germaniæ” by Hincmar (Pertz, i. 458). So Henry is “Germaniæ princeps” in Flodoard, 928. But these are mere descriptions, and no such formal title seems to be found earlier than the days of Maximilian. Indeed the German kingdom was so soon swallowed up by the Roman Empire that a distinct title for its King was hardly needed. The kingdom of Boso, on the other hand, though he and his electors shrank from giving it a name, soon found one in common use. Liudprand (Ant. ii. 60) tells how “Rodulfus rex superbissimus Burgundionibus imperabat,” and Wipo speaks familiarly (15, 19) of “Rex Burgundiæ” and “Burgundionum.” Flodoard, however, besides his favourite flourish about Cisalpine Gaul, tells us of “Rex Jurensis” under the years 935 and 940.
Lastly, the Norman duchy, as I have once or twice implied in the text, was also slow in gaining for itself any distinct territorial name. There is no trace of any such name in Flodoard or in Richer. In Dudo’s time the country is beginning, but only beginning to have a name; it is sometimes “Northmannia,” sometimes only “Terra Northmannorum,” “Northmannica regio,” and the like. In the next century the people have become “Normanni,” and their land has become “Normannia,” “Normendie.” “Northmannia,” with Einhard, meant Denmark. In Adam of Bremen “Nortmannia” means distinctively Norway, though he also uses the word “Norvegia.” With him “Nortmanni” always means Norwegians, except in ii. 52, where Richard is described as “Comes Nortmannorum” and his duchy as “Nortmannia.” It is perhaps needless to add that in our own Northumbrian geography the local names Normanton and Normanby point to Northmen, not to Normans, just as the word “Norþmen” is used in our own Chronicles in describing the Commendation of 923.