CHAPTER V

THE STATE OF SOCIETY AT THE CLOSE OF THE ANGLO

Political Organization.

SAXON PERIOD

The Anglo-Saxon kingdom in its completed form consisted of several shires; each shire contained subordinate districts which came to be known as hundreds, and each hundred was made up of a number of small communities, either independent and self-governing, or subject to the control of a lord. If free, these latter were called townships; if under a lord they came, towards the close of this period, to be called manors.

The Township. The kinsmen of each invading tribe settled down in a village surrounded by a rude form of boundary. These boundaries were called "tuns" (compare the German word zaun, meaning hedge) and the inclosed area was known as a tunscipe or township. Less frequently the village was known as a ham (from heim, the German word for home). Originally, most of these villages seem to have been free or independent. The settlement consisted of a line of houses along a street, the parent of the modern High Street, and each house was surrounded by a plot of ground which supplied garden produce. Stretching out beyond the village street were the lands used for tillage, of which every freeman was entitled to a certain amount, usually a "hide," supposed to contain about one hundred and twenty acres. The original allotments were scattered in strips in order that each might share in the good land and the bad land alike. Owing to lack of stock and farming implements each man helped his neighbors and was helped by them in turn. To avoid exhausting the soil, one part of the land was planted with wheat or rye, another with oats or barley, and a third would be allowed to lie fallow, and the crops were annually rotated. This was known as the three-field system. During the time from planting to harvest, rude temporary fences were constructed to keep out the cattle; after the crops were gathered, the fences were taken down and the cattle turned in to graze on the stubble. Besides the arable land there were common meadows and pasture

lands for the whole community, and woodlands as well. In the woods fuel was cut and swine roamed about, feeding on acorns and whatever else they could find. At stated seasons the qualified freemen assembled in their tun-moot, or town meeting; here officers were elected, chief among them the reeve, who presided over the affairs of the community and went with four chosen men to the meetings of the hundred and shire; at the tun-moot, also, by-laws were framed, rules of cultivation were settled, arrangements were made for looking after the roads and keeping the peace; but no judicial decisions were undertaken.

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The Manor as an Agrarian and Judicial Unit. As time went on most of these villages lost their independence and passed under the control of lords. The lord's steward or bailiff took the place of the elected reeve as president of the moot, and the freemen became dependent cultivators. Although landed estates with village communities in subjection upon them existed from the beginning of the period — old Roman villas under new lords - the numbers had greatly increased by the eleventh century when they came to be known as manors. They usually consisted of two parts. One was the demesne, or "inland," the land cultivated directly for the lord by slaves or by serfs, although it might be scattered among the other strips. The "outland" comprised the holdings of the serfs, usually limited to a yard or virgate (thirty acres or a quarter of a hide) although certain persons called "cotters " had no more than five acres. The serf received not only land from his lord, but also stock, cattle, and farming implements, and some household furniture. In return, he paid part of his produce in rent, and was called upon to labor during some days in the week and at intervals during harvest and to plow in the lord's lands. On the eve of the Conquest the lords had come to administer justice on their estates, and the old township courts became judicial as well as administrative bodies under the lord's steward or bailiff.

Boroughs and Cities. - Another growth of this period is the borough and city. Usually in England the word "town" is synonymous with borough and is to be distinguished from a township or village. The former had a larger population and enjoyed peculiar organization and privileges. The most characteristic feature was the wall, then they usually had a court of their own and a market. The origin of most of these boroughs is shrouded in obscurity. Some have tried to trace them from the Roman municipalities, but without success. The Roman towns were centers of a highly developed urban life, while the medieval towns were frequently little more than agricultural and fishing centers; indeed, the burghers often had farms outside the

1 Hence the name burh, a fortification.

walls. While the sites were sometimes determined by the older Roman settlements, these boroughs seem usually to have originated from fortified places in the wars against the Danes during the ninth and tenth centuries. Sometimes, however, a town grew from the union of many neighboring townships, or developed from a settlement around a monastery or a castle, or where a crossing of roads or the ford of a river provided a favorable site for a market. Gradually these towns acquired charters confirming old privileges or granting new ones. A city is merely a borough where a cathedral is situated.1

The Hundred. Until the courts of the boroughs and manors came into being, the hundred was the center for all judicial purposes. The hundreds seem to have been originally districts of the tribal kingdoms, allotted to a hundred warriors or a hundred heads of families. Each had an assembly which met once a month. It was the duty of the presiding man, the reeve or elder, to collect the dues from the hundred and to keep order; his judicial position was not the same as that of our modern judge, for he merely acted as the mouthpiece of men qualified to attend the court the priest, reeve, and four men from each township or manor as well as all free landowners and the nobles or thegns of the hundred. The jurisdiction exercised was criminal as well as civil. In the beginning, we find the groups of kinsmen responsible for the conduct of their members; in cases of murder or serious injury they had the privilege of waging, or the obligation of submitting to the feud or private warfare. But, before the end of the period, the community had established its position as arbiter, and an elaborate compensation had been arranged - "wergeld" for murder or injury, and "bot" for other damages. It was only when such satisfaction was refused that the kindred had a right to wage war or seize the possessions of the one who was at fault. For its share in securing justice the State came to claim a fine, known as a "wite," from the offender.

Procedure in the Hundred Moot. Procedure was as follows. The offended party made a formal demand before the public meeting or the presiding officer. The accused was obliged, under penalty, to answer the charge and had to deposit a pledge to abide by the decision of the court. If he admitted his guilt, it was the duty of the meeting to determine the penalty. If he wished to contest the accusation, he denied it with a formal oath, usually supported by a number of oath helpers, varying according to his rank or to the gravity of offense. Sometimes, in cases where land or cattle were involved, documents 1 Recently, however, some large boroughs where there are no cathedrals, have been given the honorary title of cities.

might be produced or witnesses to answer set questions. When the crime was too serious, or the accused was too notorious to find oath helpers, or when he was a foreigner, he had to proceed to the ordeal; that is, submit his case to the judgment of God. In the fire ordeal the accused had to carry a piece of red-hot iron weighing one pound a distance of nine feet; his hand was then bandaged, and if it healed in three days he was declared innocent. For especially grave cases there was the threefold ordeal, when the iron weighed three pounds. Another form of test was the hot water ordeal, where the accused had to plunge his arm up to the wrist in boiling water and remove a stone; here, too, there was a threefold ordeal, where he had to plunge his arm in up to the elbow. The cold water ordeal is little heard of in Anglo-Saxon times, though it was much used later for trying witches. For this test the accused was bound and lowered into the water by a rope round his waist; if he sank a certain depth, he was innocent, if he floated, he was guilty. The corsned or sacred morsel was the form usually applied in the case of a priest; the person to be tried was given an ounce of consecrated cheese or bread to swallow - his guilt or innocence depending upon his ability to perform the feat. Since the people regarded the decision in each case as given by God, it partook of a religious ceremony; for which the accused prepared himself by a three days' fast and by taking the sacrament. If the test failed, the assembled multitude declared the penalty fine, slavery, outlawry, or death. Imprisonment was not used as a form of punishment.

The Folkmoot and the Shire. Before the union of the tribes the highest form of political and judicial organization, was the folkmoot. At this assembly the great landowners, the freemen, and the priest, reeve, and four men met twice a year under their Ealdorman or chief. After the tribal states had been united into kingdoms, districts began to appear midway between the hundred or smaller jurisdiction and the kingdom. These came to be called shires, and originated at different times in different parts of the country. In the south, the kingdom of Wessex was divided probably on the lines of the ancient tribal states, and after the smaller kingdoms, Kent, Essex, and Sussex, were incorporated, they too were reduced to shires. North of the Thames the two kingdoms of East Anglia, Norfolk and Suffolk, were treated in the same way. The remainder of the midlands were artificially divided after the country had been won back from the Danes. Usually an important town or fortification was selected and the shire grouped around it; for example, Leicester formed the nucleus of Leicestershire. The shires in the extreme north - Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland - were organized after the close of the

Anglo-Saxon period. Besides transacting judicial business the shire moot collected revenues and raised military levies. At first, each shire was under the control of an Ealdorman, or Earl, chosen by the King with the consent of his Wisemen. As time went on, the shire moot came to be presided over by a shire reeve or sheriff, who levied the military forces as well. Originally, the sheriff was the king's bailiff or steward employed to collect the rents of his estates in the shire, and he continued to be appointed and dismissed by the King at pleasure. The Bishops represented the Church; and since they were the only learned men of the time, they were of great assistance, participating in all business except trials where a death penalty was involved.

The Witenagemot. The highest body in the land was the Witenagemot or moot of the Witan or Wisemen the great officials whom the King assembled about him, the Ealdormen, the Bishops, and the thegns or nobles. Their business was to assist and advise the King in devising such rude legal measures as were framed, to give their consent to land grants, and to the naming of Ealdormen and Bishops; moreover it was the Witan who named the Kings - though they were limited in their choice to the ablest male next in descent in the royal family and on rare occasions they even deposed an unworthy ruler.

The King. The King presided over the Witan and over the assemblies or synods of the Church. He led the levy, or fyrd, in war; he enforced the public peace, and he carried out the decrees which he made with the consent of his Witan. Bound to a considerable extent by the recorded laws and the traditional customs of the people, and, to some degree, limited by the Witan, the Anglo-Saxon Kings, in general, enjoyed large powers without being absolute monarchs.

Revenues in Anglo-Saxon Times. In those simple days the expenses and income of the State were small and irregular, the latter chiefly paid in produce and personal services. The King and his officials had a right to maintenance for themselves and their retainers on their progress through the country, and goods could be seized for the royal needs. This right, known as feorum fultum, corresponded to the later purveyance. The most common form of public service was the trinoda necessitas, or threefold obligation of serving in the army, of repairing roads and bridges, and guarding fortresses. The King had rents and other dues from towns on the royal demesne, he received certain court fees and fines, and forfeitures of landed estates in case of lords who died without heirs or were guilty of grave offenses against his authority; he was also entitled to harbor dues and