Derby, Grimsby, Ormsby, &c.,) we trace the Dane. The German (or Saxon) ending would be ton. The termination son to proper names of persons (as in Adamson, Nelson, i.e. Nielson, &c.) marks a Danish pedigree. Other proofs of a similar kind are collected by the modern Dane, who shows a pride, which we may well share, in these marks of affinity between the combatants of Copenhagen.+ : The troubles which shook Saxon England after the reign of Edgar (875) caused fresh attacks from Denmark. But Denmark was now consolidated into one kingdom, and had been brought within the civilizing pale of Christendom. The wars which Sveyn and Canute waged here during the end of the 10th and commencement of the 11th centuries were of a very different character to the savage devastations with which the old Northmen had swept the land. They were steady wars of conquest and for a time were successful. Canute (or Knut, as the name is more properly written and pronounced) was undisputed sovereign of England from 1017 to 1035. He united also the crowns of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, and was one of the greatest princes that ever ruled in this island, whether we regard the extent of his power or his personal character. But his dynasty was not destined to take root here, and after the death of his son Hardicanute (1052), the Anglo-Saxon element showed its predominance over the Anglo-Danish; and the nation restored a prince of the old royal stock of Cerdic to the throne. From the accession of Edward the Confessor to the battle of Hastings, England may be again correctly termed an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. We have thus brought together three of the four elements of our race; and watched their fusion. We have seen the general prevalence of the Anglo-Saxon over the British and the Danish: and henceforth we shall speak of the product of the combined three as AngloSaxon, in contradistinction to the fourth, the Norman element, that is yet to come. But before we turn our attention to Normandy, it is well to pause, and examine (so far as is practicable) the general nature of the AngloSaxon institutions before the Norman Conquest. CHAPTER IV. Anglo-Saxon Institutions. Classes of the Population.-Thralls, Ceorls, Thanes.-Townships.- Hundreds. — Tythings.—Frankpledge.-Lords.-The Were.-The Socmen.-The Towns.-The Witenagemote. The King.-The Bishops.-The Clergy. The Poor.-Deterioration of the Saxon Polity before the Conquest. NOTWITHSTANDING the effects of the Norman Conquest, and the consequent introduction of the fourth element of our present nation, the foundations of so many of the most important of our institutions are Saxon, that a right understanding of the Anglo-Saxon system of government, and the condition of the various classes of the community under it, is indispensable in order to discern and appreciate the changes and modifications introduced by the Normans, and also those which "the great innovator, Time," has subsequently effected. And even at the present day we must look back to the Anglo-Saxon period, if we would properly comprehend the principles of many of the most important and the most practical parts of our laws and usages. There is no branch of constitutional knowledge, in which so much has been done during the last fifty years as in Anglo-Saxon history. It used to be studied merely with a view to modern politics, and it was misunderstood and distorted accordingly. It is now investigated with the desire of learning the truth, and the lessons which we RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 43 derive from it are therefore trustworthy and sound. Extreme party-writers can no longer pretend to find or fancy that they find their favourite tenets in the Anglo-Saxon system; but we may all find much, the spirit of which is worthy of admiration and perpetuation, though the forms through which it acted are obsolete and incapable of revival. It should be premised that the word "system," as applied to the Anglo-Saxon times, must be taken in a very modified sense, or it is calculated to mislead by giving an idea of uniformity, such as never existed. The AngloSaxon institutions were not arbitrarily created by any one lawgiver, or during any one age. They grew by degrees; and they grew also in a country which was an almost perpetual scene of war and tumult, and which was inhabited by races of different origin; so that the local development of these institutions varied, besides their temporary fluctuations. It is unsafe to attempt to give more than a general idea of their leading features, which must be variously worked out in detail, according to the particular reign, and the particular part of England, to which it is meant to be applied. One class of the community in Anglo-Saxon times (though probably no very large portion) was in a state of absolute slavery. They were known in Saxon by the names of Theow, Esne, and Thrall. They probably originally consisted of conquered Britons; but as criminals, who could not pay the fine imposed by law, were reducible to this state, many unfortunate beings of German ancestry must in process of time have been comprised in this degraded and suffering class. The freemen of the land were classified by a broad division into the Ceorls who formed the bulk of the population, and into the Thanes who formed the nobility and the gentry. Sometimes the classification is made into Ceorls and Eorls; the title of Eorl having reference to birth, whereas the title of Thane had reference to the possession of landed property. It was this, the ownership of landed property, that mainly determined the status and political rights of a Saxon freeman, and therefore the classification into Ceorls and Thanes is the most convenient to follow.* There is an additional reason for doing so, because the Danes used the title Eorl (Jarl, Earl) to designate authority and command; and when the Danish influence extended in Saxon-England, the title of Earl was employed not to mark a man of good birth, but the ruler of a shire or other district. Many other names of bodies of people among the Saxons, and among subdivisions of classes, might be cited and explained, but to do so would require a disproportionate amount of this treatise; and, for the broad general view of Anglo-Saxon institutions, which alone is. aimed at here, the classification of freemen into Ceorls and Thanes is sufficient. Both the democratic and the aristocratic principles entered largely into the Anglo-Saxon polity; the latter finally obtaining the ascendancy, chiefly by reason of the strictness of the regulations, which it was found necessary to introduce, in order to maintain some degree of public peace, and to give some security for property and person, amid the tumult and confusion which prevailed so often and so Hallam's "Middle Ages," vol. ii. * See on this subject, and on the position of an Earl, who had not the property requisite to "Saxons in England,” vol. i. make him a Thane, an excellent p. 256. note in the new edition of Mr. P. 131. |