a

BOOK there is good reason to believe, that the cities and
VIII.,

burghs sent their members into its body; and if
these were not at first commercial, from the poverty
and low estate of the earliest Anglo-Saxon trades-
men, they were likely to be of this description,
when commerce had increased into the power of
giving wealth, and that wealth, of creating for the
merchant an effective rank not less important in
the society whom he benefited, than the born
nobility, which the great so highly valued. It is to
the credit of the Anglo-Saxons, that no other Euro-
pean branch of the Teutonic population preserved
so free and so effective a witena-gamot as they did
The legislatures which continued to exist of this
sort in other countries gradually dwindled into non-
existence, while the English parliament has flou-
rished like the English nation, an example and an
instrument of a national prosperity and power, ex-
ceeded by no preceding state, and equalled, if at
all, by very few. To Fra Paolo's exclamation, of
“ Esto perpetua,” the tendencies of the present
age allow us to add the hope that, sooner or later,
“Sit universa.”

WHERE the cyning was only the temporary commander of the nation, for the purposes of war, whose function ceased when peace returned, the witena-gemot must have been the supreme autho. rity of the nation. But when the cyning became an established and permanent dignity, whose privileges and power were perpetually increasing till he attained the majestic prerogatives and widelydiffused property which Athelstan and Edgar enjoyed, the witena-gemot then assumed a secondary rank in the state. We will endeavour to delineate its nature and powers with fidelity, adopting no

IV.

theory, but carefully following the lights which CHAP.
the Saxon documents afford to us.
The topics of our inquiry will be these:

What its members were styled.
Of whom it was composed.
By whom convened.
The times of its meetings.
The place.
Its business.

Its power.

The gemot and its members have various appellations in the writings of our ancestors. In their vernacular tongue they have been styled, the witena-gemot; the Engla ræd gifan (council-givers);

; the witan ; the Eadigra geheahtendlic ymcyme (the illustrious assembly of the wealthy); the Eadigan (the wealthy); the mycel synoth (great synod).

In the Latin phrases applied to them by our forefathers they have been called optimates; principes ; primaes; proceres; concionatores Angliæ, and such like.

The kings who allude to them in their grants, call them, My witan ; meorum sapientum archontum; heroicorum virorum ; conciliatorum meorum ; meorum omnium episcoporum et principum optimatum meorum ; optimatibusó nostris. All these are various phrases to express the same thing. With reference to their presumed wisdom, they were called witan; with reference to their rank

3 Sax. Chron. 154. MS. Claud. A. 3. Sax. Chron. 148. Alfred's Will. Wilkins, 76. 102. Ibid. p. 10. p. 72, &c.

4 Ethelward, 847. Hem. Chart. p. 15. 17.23. MS. Claud. MS. Cleop. 3 Gale, 484, 485, &c. 5 Heming. Chart. 2. 41. 57. MS. Claud. C. 9. 103. 112, 113, &c.

VIII.

BOOK and property, or nomination, they were styled

eadigan, optimates, principes, proceres, &c. Other names will appear in some of the subsequent quotations.

On the question, who were the members of the witena-gemot, some certain information can be given, and some probable inferences may be made. That the bishops, abbots, eorles, ealdormen, and those who bore the title which was latinised into dux, princeps, &c., were parts of the great national council, is indisputable, from the language of the laws and the numerous charters which they signed. It is as manifest, that others besides these higher nobles also attended it; and that these were thegns or ministri, milites, and several who are mentioned in the charters without any designation of legal rank. Thus far the Anglo-Saxon documents give certain information. The only questionable points ! are, whether these thegns, milites, and others, attended like our ancient and present barons, as a matter of personal right from their rank, when summoned by the king, and with a legal claim to be so summoned ; or whether they were elected representatives of any and what part of the nation, inferior in rank to the summoned nobility. After many years' consideration of the question, I am inclined to believe, that the Anglo-Saxon witеnagemot very much resembled our present parliament, in the orders and persons that composed it; and that the members, who attended, as representatives, were chosen by classes analogous to those who now possess the elective franchise.

We have an expressive outline of the general construction of all the German national councils,

Yet so,

a

in these words of Tacitus: “ On the minor affairs CHAP. the chiefs consult; on the greater, ALL.

IV. that those things, of which the decision rests with the people, are treated of among the chiefs.” 6 This passage shows that, by the general principle of the most ancient German gemots, the people made an essential part of the assembly. Both chiefs and people deliberated, and the people decided. This being the primeval principle of the national councils of ancient Germany, before the Angles and Saxons left it, it becomes incumbent on the historical antiquary to show, not when the people acceded to the witena-gemots, but when, if ever, they were divested of the right of attending them. Of such a divestment there is no trace either in our historical or legal records.

The popular part of our representation seems to have been immemorial. There is no document that marks its commencement. And if the probabilities of the case had been duly considered, it would have been allowed to be unlikely, that the sovereigns and the aristocracy of the nation would have united to diminish their own legislative power, by calling representatives from the people to share it. Neither kings nor nobles could alone confer this power; and it would have been a voluntary and unparalleled abandonment of their own exclusive prerogatives and privileges, that they should have combined to impart it to others, if these had not possessed an ancient indefeasible right of enjoy. ing it. But, in considering the Anglo-Saxon people that were represented at the gemot, we must not confound them with our present population. Those

VIII.

BOOK classes only who now elect members would then

have been allowed to elect them; and the numbers of the individuals composing these classes were very much smaller indeed than their present amount. The great bulk of the Anglo-Saxon population was in a servile state, and therefore without any constitutional rights. All the villani, servi, bordarii, coscetæ, cotarii and coliberti, esnes and theows; that is, all the working agricultural population, and most of those who occupied the station of our present small farmers; and in the burghs and cities, all those who were what is called the men, or low vassals of other persons, analogous to our inferior artisans and mechanics and small tradesmen, were the property of their respective lords, and with no more political rights than the cattle and furniture, with which we find them repeatedly classed and transferred. Two thirds, at least, more probably three fourths, of the Anglo-Saxon population were originally in this state, till voluntary or purchased emancipations, and the effects of war and invasion, gradually increased the numbers of the free. Domesday book shows, that even in the reign of the Confessor, the largest part of the English popuJation was in the servile state.

The constitutional principle as to the servile population of the country seems to have been, that it was represented by its masters in the national council, like the rest of their property.

Hence it was only to the freemen of the counties, or, as we now call them, freeholders; and to the free inhabitants of the burghs or boroughs, and cities, whom we now call burgesses and citizens, that any legislative representation can have applied in the Anglo-Saxon times. The freeholders appear