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VIII.

landed proprietors, however, still too much prepon- CHAP. derated in their exclusive privileges, when the Norman Conquest occurred to fix them in a greater subordination to the crown and to the law than the Anglo-Saxon constitution permitted. From the time of the Conquest the English aristocracy declined into an inferior, but permanent state of power, more compatible with the freedom and prosperity of the nation, and the liberties of the people, while the number of the free were proportionably multiplied.

That a great landed and independent aristocracy should have been first formed in the nation was the natural result of their mode of invading the Britons. Small fleets of Anglo-Saxon warriors successively landed, and forced from the Britons certain districts of the island, which their future warfare enlarged. Being comparatively few in number, the division of the conquered territory threw large tracts of land into the hands of the first chieftains and their followers, and the conquered natives were made their slaves. Their king being then but one of themselves, elected as their war-king, had no pretensions to more power or prerogatives than they chose to concede; and hence a martial aristocracy, headed by a king, became the prevail- x ing character of the Anglo-Saxon body politic. Their feuds with each other led the weaker party at all times to seek aid from the king, and the ple had no other asylum than his power from the violence of their superiors. Hence the royal authority was perpetually invited into greater power and activity for the general benefit ; and the Christian clergy made it venerable to the nation

peo

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BOOK by the religious considerations which they attached

to it.

Thus the first state of the Anglo-Saxon nation was that of a great landed body, in proud independence, of fierce spirit, and attached to military habits. The rest of the nation were chiefly enslaved peasantry and domestics, and free burghs, with poor artisans, and tradesmen of small consideration and no greater property; with a clergy that, in their tithes and church payments, and in the endowments of their monasteries, were sharing with the nobles the land and property of the country.

But the same evil existed among the AngloSaxons that attends every country in which the laws of property have become established, and to which extensive commerce has not opened its channels; that of continually having an unprovided population, which had their subsistence to seek, and their love of consequence to gratify. The monasteries took off some portion of this disquieting body, which was the more formidable to the peaceful, from the warlike habits of the country; but the larger part sought their provision perpetually by the sword. Hence robbery and rapine became one of the main internal features of the country; and more of the laws of every Anglo-Saxon king were directed against such plunderers than to any other single subject. Hence the severity against those who had no lords or no friends to bail them. It was this habit that compelled the law to enjoin that every body should be armed, and have their appointed weapons ready, that the burghs and towns might be more secure, and the marauders repressed or pursued. The same cause urged Al

VIII.

fred and the witena-gemots to put every man into CHAP. a state of bail for good behaviour, and to shackle what little trade there was, by making it illegal unless transacted before deputed officers and witnesses, and by treating every traveller as a suspicious wanderer. Hence all who could afford it had knights and retainers in their pay, to protect their property and persons from violence. . Hence the laws against binding free men, and selling them and Christians for slaves; for by seizing those who had property, the violent extorted a ransom, or by disposing of them as slaves, extracted a profit from their misery. Hence we find, amid the chronicles of the clergy, repeated instances of land torn by force and rapine even from them.

And we may form some notion of the amount and danger of these depredations, by observing that, in the laws of Ina, they are described as of three classes. While they did not exceed seven men together they were called thieves (theofas); but from that number to thirty-five they were called a hloth or band; when they were more than thirty-five they were termed an army.

Each of these offences were differently punished. In the subsequent reigns

" we find ealdormen, thegns, and others, possessing themselves of lands by force from weaker proprietors.?

Much individual prosperity could not be expected from such habits; but the bounty of nature every year pours such riches from the earth, that, notwithstanding these habits of depredation, the property of the country could not fail to increase.

1 1 Leg. Ina. Wilk. 17.

2 The instances of these are numerous. See of one single monastery, Hist. El. p. 466, 467. 469. 482, 483, 484, 485, &c. &c.

VIII.

BOOK Timber grows, grass diffuses itself, fruit-trees blos

som, and animals multiply, and minerals enlarge, whether man labours, idles, or combats. But there were plenty of slaves to pursue the husbandry that was needed, and therefore all the natural riches of animal, vegetable, and mineral production were perpetually accumulating in the country. These are the foundations of wealth in all; and though the Anglo-Saxons had at first but little external or internal traffic, and imperfect roads, except those left by the Romans, yet the permanent property of the country was increasing in the multiplied permanent comforts of each individual. Every additional article of furniture or convenience from the forest or the mine; from the horns, hair, hides, or bones of his animals ; every barn of corn and stock of salted provision, or pile of turf, wood, or peat, beyond his immediate consumption, was, as well as the stones he dug from the quarry, or the articles he manufactured from his flax or metals, an accumulation of actual property to himself, and an augmentation of the general wealth of the nation. All these articles were every year accumulating in the country, and many were by degrees exchanged for the gold and silver, and natural produce of other countries, as slowly increasing trade gradually brought them from abroad. Hence every reign discovers to us some indication of an increasing affluence, as well as an increasing population of the Anglo-Saxon nation.

The progress of the Anglo-Saxons to wealth was accelerated by the previous civilisation of Britain. The Romans had retired from it but a few years before their invasion, and had raised many temples and buildings in the island, and filled them

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VIII.

with appropriate furniture, of which much remained to assist the ingenuity and excite the taste of the new conquerors. That gold and silver had abounded in the island, while it was possessed by the Romans and Britons, the coins that have been found at every period since, almost every year, sufficiently testify; and it was the frequency of these emerging to view which made treasure-trove an important part of our ancient laws, and which is mentioned by Alfred as one of the means of becoming wealthy. In the earliest Anglo-Saxon laws, almost all the penalties are pecuniary, in silver coin. That bullion was not deficient in the coun. try, but was continually increasing, appears from the numerous instances of purchase monies given in gold and silver, either coined or by weight, for lands, of which the charters still remain. By the quantities of money given to buy land for a monastery, by one bishop and by its first abbot, it

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3 Thus for the Ely monastery they paid to various persons the following sums :

100 pounds and a golden 8 pounds,
cross,

80 aurei,
100 aureos,

200 aurei, 60 pounds of silver,

6 pounds, 20 aureos,

8 pounds, 40 shillings,

12 pounds, 15 pounds,

80 shillings, 100 shillings,

7 pounds, 7 pounds,

90 aurei, 4 pounds,

112 memmi, 15 pounds,

100 shillings, 20 shillings,

20 shillings, 30 aurei,

30 pounds, 200 aurei,

40 shillings, 30 aurei,

40 pounds, 11 pounds,

4 pounds, 18 pence, 20 pounds,

100 shillings, 50 aurei,

15 pounds,

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