spoil on the low countries, they usually made a hasty retreat into their mountains, where they were sheltered from the pursuit of their enemies, and were ready to seize the first favourable opportunity of renewing their depredations. Griffith, the reigning prince, had greatly distinguished himself in those incursions; and his name had become so terrible to the English, that Harold found he could do nothing more acceptable to the public, and more honourable for himself, than the suppressing of so dangerous an enemy. He formed the plan of an expedition against Wales; and having prepared some light- armed foot to pursue the natives into their fastnesses, some cavalry to scour the open country, and a squadron of ships to attack the seacoast, he employed at once all these forces against the Welsh, prosecuted his advantages with vigour, made no intermission in his assaults, and at last reduced the enemy to such distress, that, in order to prevent their total destruction, they made a sacrifice of their prince, whose head they cut off and sent to Harold; and they were content to receive as their sovereigns two Welsh noblemen appointed by Edward to rule over them. The other incident was no less honourable to Harold.
Tosti, brother of this nobleman, who had been created Duke of Northumberland, being of a violent tyrannical temper, had acted with such cruelty and injustice, that the inhabitants rose in rebellion, and chased him from his government. Morcar and Edwin, two brothers, who possessed great power in those parts, and who were grandsons of the great Duke Leofric, concurred in the insurrection; and the former, being elected duke, advanced with an army to oppose Harold, who was commissioned by the king to reduce and chastise the Northumbrians. Before the armies came to action, Morcar, well acquainted with the generous disposition of the English commander, endeavoured to justify his own conduct. He represented to Harold, that Tosti had behaved in a manner unworthy of the station to which he was advanced, and no one, not even a brother, could support such tyranny without participating, in some degree, of the infamy attending it; that the Northumbrians, accustomed to a legal administration, and regarding it as their birth- right, were willing to submit to the king, but required a governor who would pay regard to their rights and privileges; that they had been taught by their ancestors, that death was preferable to servitude, and had taken the field, determined to perish rather than suffer a renewal of those indignities to which they had so long been exposed; and they trusted that Harold, on reflection, would not defend in another that violent conduct, from which he himself, in his own government, had always kept at so great a distance. This vigorous remonstrance was accompanied with such a detail of facts, so well supported, that Harold found it prudent to abandon his brother’s cause; and returning to Edward, he persuaded him to pardon the Northumbrians, and to confirm Morcar in the government. He even married the sister of that nobleman [b]; and by his interest procured Edwin, the younger brother, to be elected into the government of Mercia. Tosti in rage departed the kingdom, and took shelter in Flanders with Earl Baldwin, his father-in-law.
[FN [b] Order Vitalis, p. 492.]
By this marriage Harold broke all measures with the Duke of Normandy; and William clearly perceived that he could no longer rely on the oaths and promises which he had extorted from him. But the English nobleman was now in such a situation, that he deemed it no longer necessary to dissemble. He had in his conduct towards the Northumbrians, given such a specimen of his moderation as had gained him the affections of his countrymen. He saw that almost all England was engaged in his interests; while he himself possessed the government of Wessex, Morcar that of Northumberland, and Edward that of Mercia. He now openly aspired to the succession; and insisted, that since it was necessary, by the confession of all, to set aside the royal family, on account of the imbecility of Edgar, the sole surviving heir, there was no one as capable of filling the throne as a nobleman of great power, of mature age, of long experience, of approved courage and abilities, who, being a native of the kingdom, would effectually secure it against the dominion and tyranny of foreigners. Edward, broken with age and infirmities, saw the difficulties too great for him to encounter; and though his inveterate prepossession kept him from seconding the pretensions of Harold, he took but feeble and irresolute steps for securing the succession to the Duke of Normandy [c]. While he continued in this uncertainty he was surprised by sickness, which brought him to his grave, on the fifth of January 1066, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, and twenty- fifth of his reign.
[FN [c] See note [F] at the end of the volume.]
This prince, to whom the monks gave the title of Saint and Confessor, was the last of the Saxon line that ruled in England. Though his reign was peaceable and fortunate, he owed his prosperity less to his own abilities than to the conjunctures of the times. The Danes, employed in other enterprises, attempted not those incursions which had been so troublesome to all his predecessors, and fatal to some of them. The facility of his disposition made him acquiesce under the government of Godwin and his son Harold; and the abilities, as well as the power, of these noblemen enabled them, while they were entrusted with authority, to preserve domestic peace and tranquillity. The most commendable circumstance of Edward’s government was his attention to the administration of justice, and his compiling, for that purpose, a body of laws, which he collected from the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred. This compilation, though now lost, (for the laws that pass under Edward’s name were composed afterwards [d],) was long the object of affection to the English nation.
[FN [d] Spellm. in verbo BELLIVA.]
Edward the Confessor was the first that touched for the king’s evil: the opinion of his sanctity procured belief to this cure among the people: his successors regarded it as a part of their state and grandeur to uphold the same opinion. It has been continued down to our time; and the practice was first dropped by the present royal family, who observed that it could no longer give amazement even to the populace, and was attended with ridicule in the eyes of all men of understanding.
[MN Harold. 1066. January.]
Harold had so well prepared matters before the death of Edward, that he immediately stepped into the vacant throne; and his accession was attended with as little opposition and disturbance, as if he had succeeded by the most undoubted hereditary title. The citizens of London were his zealous partisans: the bishops and clergy had adopted his cause; and all the powerful nobility, connected with him by alliance or friendship, willingly seconded his pretensions. The title of Edgar Atheling was scarcely mentioned; much less the claim of the Duke of Normandy: and Harold, assembling his partisans, received the crown from their hands, without waiting for the free deliberation of the states, or regularly submitting the question to their determination [e]. If any were averse to this measure, they were obliged to conceal their sentiments; and the new prince, taking a general silence for consent, and founding his title on the supposed suffrages of the people, which appeared unanimous, was, on the day immediately succeeding Edward’s death, crowned and anointed king, by Aldred, Archbishop of York. The whole nation seemed joyful to acquiesce in his elevation.
[FN [e] G. Pict. p. 196. Ypod. Neust. p. 436. Order. Vitalis, p. 492. M. West. p. 221 W. Malm. p. 93. Ingulph. p. 68. Brompton, p. 957. Knyghton, p. 2339. H. Hunt. p. 210. Many of the historians say, that Harold was regularly elected by the states: some, that Edward left him his successor by will.]
The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered came from abroad, and from his own brother Tosti, who had submitted to a voluntary banishment in Flanders. Enraged at the successful ambition of Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the court of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had suffered; he engaged the interest of that family against his brother: he endeavoured to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles in England: he sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to excite the hopes of reaping advantage from the unsettled state of affairs on the usurpation of the new king: and that he might render the combination more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation that the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin, would, in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England [f]. [FN [f] Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]
The Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold’s intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of indignation; but that he might give the better colour to his pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately possession of the kingdom. Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors, that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be regarded as obligatory: that he had had no commission either from the late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Normandy; and if he, a private person, had assumed so much authority, and had even voluntarily sworn to support the duke’s pretensions, the oath was unlawful, and it was his duty to seize the first opportunity of breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by the unanimous suffrages of the people; and should prove himself totally unworthy of their favour, did he not strenuously maintain those national liberties, with whose protection they had entrusted him: and that the duke, if he made any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power of an united nation, conducted by a prince, who, sensible of the obligations imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same moment should put a period to his life and to his government [g]. [FN [g] W. Malm. p. 99. Higden, p. 285. Matth. West. p. 222. De Gest. Angl. ancento auctore, p. 331.]
This answer was no other than William expected; and he had previously fixed his resolution of making an attempt upon England. Consulting only his courage, his resentment, and his ambition, he overlooked all the difficulties inseparable from an attack on a great kingdom by such inferior force, and he saw only the circumstances which would facilitate his enterprise. He considered that England, ever since the accession of Canute, had enjoyed profound tranquillity during a period of over fifty years; and it would require time for its soldiers, enervated by long peace, to learn discipline, and its generals experience. He knew that it was entirely unprovided with fortified towns, by which it could prolong the war; but must venture its whole fortune in one decisive action against a veteran enemy, who, being once master of the field, would be in a condition to overrun the kingdom. He saw that Harold, though he had given proofs of vigour and bravery, had newly mounted a throne, which he had acquired by faction, from which he had excluded a very ancient royal family, and which was likely to totter under him by its own instability, much more if shaken by any violent external impulse; and he hoped, that the very circumstance of his crossing the sea, quitting his own country, and leaving himself no hopes of retreat, as it would astonish the enemy by the boldness of the enterprise, would inspirit his soldiers by despair, and rouse them to sustain the reputation of the Norman arms.
The Normans, as they had long been distinguished by valour among all the European nations, had at this time attained to the highest pitch of military glory. Besides acquiring by arms such a noble territory in France, besides defending it against continual attempts of the French monarch and all his neighbours, besides exerting many acts of vigour under their present sovereign; they had, about this very time, revived their ancient fame, by the most hazardous exploits, and the most wonderful successes in the other extremity of Europe. A few Norman adventurers in Italy had acquired such an ascendant, not only over the Italians and Greeks, but the Germans and Saracens, that they expelled those foreigners, procured to themselves ample establishments, and laid the foundation of the opulent kingdom of Naples and Sicily [h]. These enterprises of men, who were all of them vassals in Normandy, many of them banished for faction and rebellion, excited the ambition of the haughty William, who disdained, after such examples of fortune and valour, to be deterred from making an attack on a neighbouring country, where he could be supported by the whole force of his principality.
[FN [h] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 30.]
The situation also of Europe inspired William with hopes that, besides his brave Normans he might employ against England the flower of the military force which was dispersed in all the neighbouring states. France, Germany, and the Low Countries, by the progress of the feudal institutions, were divided and subdivided into many principalities and baronies; and the possessors, enjoying the civil jurisdiction within themselves, as well as the right of arms, acted, in many respects, as independent sovereigns, and maintained their properties and privileges, less by the authority of laws than by their own force and valour. A military spirit had universally diffused itself throughout Europe; and the several leaders, whose minds were elevated by their princely situation, greedily embraced the most hazardous enterprises; and being accustomed to nothing from their infancy but recitals of the success attending wars and battles, they were prompted by a natural ambition to imitate those adventurers, which they heard so much celebrated, and which were so much exaggerated by the credulity of the age. United, however loosely, by their duty to one superior lord, and by their connexions with the great body of the community to which they belonged, they desired to spread their fame each beyond his own district; and in all assemblies, whether instituted for civil deliberations, for military expeditions, or merely for show and entertainment, to outshine each other by the reputation of strength and prowess. Hence their genius for chivalry; hence their impatience of peace and tranquillity; and hence their readiness to embark in any dangerous enterprise, how little soever interested in its failure or success.
William, by his power, his courage, and his abilities, had long maintained a pre-eminence among those haughty chieftains; and every one who desired to signalize himself by his address in military exercises, or in valour in action, had been ambitious of acquiring a reputation in the court and in the armies of Normandy. Entertained with that hospitality and courtesy which distinguished the age, they had formed attachments with the prince, and greedily attended to the prospects of the signal glory and elevation which he promised them in return for their concurrence in an expedition against England. The more grandeur there appeared in the attempt, the more it suited their romantic spirit; the fame of the intended invasion was already diffused every where; multitudes crowded to tender to the Duke their service, with that of their vassals and retainers [i]; and William found less difficulty in completing his levies than in choosing the most veteran forces, and in rejecting the offers of those who were impatient to acquire fame under so renowned a leader. [FN [i] Gul. Pictavensis, p. 198.]
Besides these advantages, which William owed to his personal valour and good conduct, he was indebted to fortune for procuring him some assistance, and also for removing many obstacles which it was natural for him to expect in an undertaking, in which all his neighbours were so deeply interested. Conan, Count of Britany, was his mortal enemy; in order to throw a damp upon the duke’s enterprise, he chose this conjuncture for reviving his claim to Normandy itself; and he required that, in case of William’s success against England the possession of that duchy should devolve to him [k]. But Conan died suddenly after making this demand; and Hoel, his successor, instead of adopting the malignity, or, more properly speaking, the prudence of his predecessor, zealously seconded the duke’s views and sent his eldest son, Alain Fergant, to serve under him with a body of five thousand Bretons. The counts of Anjou and of Flanders encouraged their subjects to engage in the expedition; and even the court of France, though it might justly fear the aggrandizement of so dangerous a vassal, pursued not its interests on this occasion with sufficient vigour and resolution. Philip I., the reigning monarch, was a minor; and William, having communicated his project to the council, having desired assistance, and offered to do homage, in case of his success, for the crown of England, was indeed openly ordered to lay aside all thoughts of the enterprise; but the Earl of Flanders, his father-in- law, being at the head of the regency, favoured underhand his levies, and secretly encouraged the adventurous nobility to enlist under the standard of the Duke of Normandy.
[FN [k] Gul Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 33.]
The Emperor, Henry IV., besides openly giving all his vassals permission to embark in this expedition, which so much engaged the attention of Europe, promised his protection to the duchy of Normandy during the absence of the prince, and thereby enabled him to employ his whole force in the invasion of England [l]. But the most important ally whom William gained by his negotiations was the pope, who had a mighty influence over the ancient barons, no less devout in their religious principles, than valorous in their military enterprises. The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress, during several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head openly above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a mediator, or even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest monarchs; to interpose in all secular affairs; and to obtrude his dictates as sovereign laws on his obsequious disciples. It was a sufficient motive to Alexander II., the reigning pope, for embracing William’s quarrel, that he alone had made an appeal to his tribunal, and rendered him umpire of the dispute between him and Harold; but there were other advantages which that pontiff foresaw must result from the conquest of England by the Norman arms. That kingdom, though at first converted by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards advanced some farther steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained still a considerable independence in its ecclesiastical administration; and forming a world within itself, entirely separated from the rest of Europe, it had hitherto proved inaccessible to those exorbitant claims which supported the grandeur of the papacy. Alexander therefore hoped, that the French and Norman barons, if successful in their enterprise, might import into that country a more devoted reverence to the holy see, and bring the English churches to a nearer conformity with those of the continent. He declared immediately in favour of William’s claim; pronounced Harold a perjured usurper; denounced excommunication against him and his adherents; and the more to encourage the Duke of Normandy in his enterprise, he sent him a consecrated banner, and a ring with one of St. Peter’s hairs in it [m]. Thus were al1 the ambition and violence of that invasion covered over safely with the broad mantle of religion. [FN [l] Gul. Pict. p. 198. [m] Baker, p. 22. edit. 1684.]
The greatest difficulty which William had to encounter in his preparations, arose from his own subjects in Normandy. The states of the duchy were assembled at Lislebonne; and supplies being demanded for the intended enterprise, which promised so much glory and advantage to their country, there appeared a reluctance in many members, both to grant sums so much beyond the common measure of taxes in that age, and to set a precedent of performing their military service at a distance from their own country. The duke, finding it dangerous to solicit them in a body, conferred separately with the richest individuals in the province; and beginning with those on whose affections he most relied, he gradually engaged all of them to advance the sums demanded. The Count of Longueville seconded him in his negotiation; as did the Count of Mortaigne, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and especially William Fitz-Osborne, Count of Breteuil, and constable of the duchy. Every person, when he himself was once engaged, endeavoured to bring over others; and at last the states themselves, after stipulating that this concession should be no precedent, voted that they would assist their prince to the utmost in his intended enterprise [n].
[FN [n] Camden. Introd. ad Britan. p. 212. 2nd edit. Gibs. Verstegan, p. 173.]
William had now assembled a fleet of three thousand vessels, great and small [o], and had selected an army of sixty thousand men from among those numerous supplies which from every quarter solicited to be received into his service. The camp bore a splendid yet a martial appearance, from the discipline of the men, the beauty and vigour of the horse, the lustre of the arms, and the accoutrements of both; but above all, from the high names of nobility who engaged under the banners of the Duke of Normandy. The most celebrated were Eustace, Count of Boulogne, Aimeri de Thouars, Hugh d’Estaples, William d’Evreux, Geoffrey de Routrou, Roger de Beaumont, William de Warenne, Roger de Montgomery, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Charles Martel, and Geoffrey Giffard [p]. To these bold chieftains William held up the spoils of England as the prize of their valour; and pointing to the opposite shore, called to them, that THERE was the field on which they must erect trophies to their name, and fix their establishments. [FN [o] Gul. Gemet. lib. 7. cap. 34. [p] Order. Vitalis, p. 501.]
While he was making these mighty preparations, the duke, that he might increase the number of Harold’s enemies, excited the inveterate rancour of Tosti, and encouraged him, in concert with Harold Halfagar, King of Norway, to infest the coasts of England. Tosti, having collected about sixty vessels in the ports of Flanders, put to sea; and after committing some depredations on the south and east coasts, he sailed to Northumberland, and was there joined by Halfagar, who came over with a great armament of three hundred sail. The combined fleets entered the Humber, and disembarked the troops, who began to extend their depredations on all sides; when Morcar, Earl of Northumberland, and Edwin, Earl of Mercia, the king’s brother-in-law, having hastily collected some forces, ventured to give them battle. The action ended in the defeat and flight of these two noble men.
Harold, informed of this defeat, hastened with an army to the protection of his people; and expressed the utmost ardour to show himself worthy of the crown which had been conferred upon him. This prince, though he was not sensible of the full extent of his danger, from the great combination against him, had employed every art of popularity to acquire the affections of the public; and he gave so many proofs of an equitable and prudent administration that the English found no reason to repent the choice which they had made of a sovereign. They flocked from all quarters to join his standard; and as soon as he reached the enemy at Standford, he found himself in a condition to give them battle. [MN Sept. 25.] The action was bloody; but the victory was decisive on the side of Harold, and ended in the total rout of the Norwegians, together with the death of Tosti and Halfagar. Even the Norwegian fleet fell into the hands of Harold; who had the generosity to give Prince Olave, the son of Halfagar, his liberty, and allow him to depart with twenty vessels. But he had scarcely time to rejoice for his victory, when he received intelligence that the Duke of Normandy was landed with a great army in the south of England.
The Norman fleet and army had been assembled early in the summer, at the mouth of the small river Dive, and all the troops had been instantly embarked; but the winds proved long contrary, and detained them in that harbour. The authority, however, of the duke, the good discipline maintained among the seamen and soldiers, and the great care in supplying them with provisions, had prevented any disorder; when at last the wind became favourable, and enabled them to sail along the coast, till they reached St. Valori. There were, however, several vessels lost in this short passage; and as the wind again proved contrary, the army began to imagine that heaven had declared against them, and that, notwithstanding the pope’s benediction, they were destined to certain destruction. These bold warriors, who despised real dangers, were very subject to the dread of imaginary ones; and many of them began to mutiny, some of them even to desert their colours; when the duke, in order to support their drooping hopes, ordered a procession to be made with the relics of St. Valori [q], and prayers to be said for more favourable weather. The wind instantly changed; and as this incident happened on the eve of the feast of St. Michael, the tutelar saint of Normandy, the soldiers, fancying they saw the hand of Heaven in all these concurring circumstances, set out with the greatest alacrity: they met with no opposition on their passage: a great fleet, which Harold has assembled, and which had cruized all summer off the Isle of Wight, had been dismissed, on his receiving false intelligence that William, discouraged by contrary winds and other accidents, had laid aside his preparations. The Norman armament, proceeding in great order, arrived without any material loss, at Pevensey, in Sussex; and the army quietly disembarked. The duke himself, as he leaped on shore, happened to stumble and fall; but had the presence of mind, it is said, to turn the omen to his advantage, by calling aloud that he had taken possession of the country. And a soldier, running to a neighbouring cottage, plucked some thatch, which, as if giving seisin of the kingdom, he presented to his general. The joy and alacrity of William and his whole army were so great, that they were nowise discouraged, even when they heard of Harold’s great victory over the Norwegians; they seemed rather to wait with impatience for the arrival of the enemy.
[FN [q] Higden, p. 285. Order. Vitalis, p. 500. Matth. Paris, edit. Paris., anno 1644, p. 2.]
The victory of Harold, though great and honourable, had proved in the main prejudicial to his interests, and may be regarded as the immediate cause of his ruin. He lost many of his bravest officers and soldiers in the action: and he disgusted the rest by refusing to distribute the Norwegian spoils among them: a conduct which was little agreeable to his usual generosity of temper; but which his desire of sparing the people, in the war that impended over him from the Duke of Normandy, had probably occasioned. He hastened, by quick marches, to reach this new invader; but though he was reinforced at London and other places with fresh troops, he found himself also weakened by the desertion of his old soldiers, who, from fatigue and discontent, secretly withdrew from their colours. His brother Gurth, a man of bravery and conduct, began to entertain apprehensions of the event; and remonstrated with the king, that it would be better policy to prolong the war; at least, to spare his own person in the action. He urged to him, that the desperate situation of the Duke of Normandy made it requisite for that prince to bring matters to a speedy decision, and put his whole fortune on the issue of a battle; but that the King of England, in his own country, beloved by his subjects, provided with every supply, had more certain and less dangerous means of ensuring to himself the victory; that the Norman troops, elated on the one hand with the highest hopes, and seeing, on the other, no resource in case of a discomfiture, would fight to the last extremity; and being the flower of all the warriors of the continent, must be regarded as formidable to the English: that if their first fire, which is always the most dangerous, were allowed to languish for want of action; if they were harassed with small skirmishes, straitened in provisions, and fatigued with the bad weather and deep roads during the winter season which was approaching, they must fall an easy and a bloodless prey to their enemy: that if a general action were delayed, the English, sensible of the imminent danger to which their properties, as well as liberties, were exposed from those rapacious invaders, would hasten from all quarters to his assistance, and would render his army invincible: that at least, if he thought it necessary to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person, but reserve, in case of disastrous accidents, some resource to the liberty and independence of the kingdom: and that having once been so unfortunate as to be constrained to swear, and that upon the holy relics, to support the pretensions of the Duke of Normandy, it were better that the command of the army should be intrusted to another, who not being bound by those sacred ties, might give the soldiers more assured hopes of a prosperous issue to the combat.
Harold was deaf to all these remonstrances: elated with his past prosperity, as well as stimulated by his native courage, he resolved to give battle in person; and for that purpose he drew near to the Normans, who had removed their camp and fleet to Hastings, where they fixed their quarters. He was so confident of success, that he sent a message to the duke, promising him a sum of money if he would depart the kingdom without effusion of blood: but his offer was rejected with disdain; and William, not to be behind with his enemy in vaunting, sent him a message by some monks, requiring him either to resign the kingdom, or to hold it of him in fealty, or to submit their cause to the arbitration of the pope, or to fight him in single combat. Harold replied, that the God of battles would soon be the arbiter of all their .differences [r].
[FN [r] Higden, p. 286.]
[MN 14th October.] The English and Normans now prepared themselves for this important decision; but the aspect of things on the night before the battle was very different in the two camps. The English spent the night in riot, and jollity, and disorder; the Normans in silence, and in prayer, and in the other functions of their religion [s]. On the morning, the duke called together the most considerable of his commanders, and made them a speech suitable to the occasion. He represented to them, that the event which they and he had long wished for was approaching; the whole fortune of the war now depended on their swords, and would be decided in a single action: that never army had greater motives for exerting a vigorous courage, whether they considered the prize which would attend their victory, or the inevitable destruction which must ensue upon their discomfiture: that if their martial and veteran bands could once break those raw soldiers, who had rashly dared to approach them, they conquered a kingdom at one blow, and were justly entitled to all its possessions as the reward of their prosperous valour: that, on the contrary, if they remitted in the least their wonted prowess, an enraged enemy hung upon their rear, the sea met them in their retreat, and an ignominious death was the certain punishment of their imprudent cowardice: that by collecting so numerous and brave a host, he had ensured every human means of conquest; and the commander of the enemy, by his criminal conduct, had given him just cause to hope for the favour of the Almighty, in whose hands alone lay the event of wars and battles: and that a perjured usurper, anathematized by the sovereign pontiff, and conscious of his own breach of faith, would be struck with terror on their appearance, and would prognosticate to himself that fate which his multiplied crimes had so justly merited [t]. The duke next divided his army into three lines: the first, led by Montgomery, consisted of archers and light-armed infantry: the second, commanded by Martel, was composed of his bravest battalions, heavy armed, and ranged in close order: his cavalry, at whose head he placed himself, formed the third line; and were so disposed, that they stretched beyond the infantry, and flanked each wing of the army [u]. He ordered the signal of battle to be given; and the whole army, moving at once, and singing the hymn or song of Roland, the famous peer of Charlemagne [w], advanced, in order, and with alacrity, towards the enemy.
[FN [s] W. Malm. p. 101. De Gest. Angl. p. 332. [t] H. Hunt. p. 368. Brompton p. 959. Gul. Pict. p. 201. [u] Gul. Pict. p. 201. Order. Vital. p. 501. [w] W. Malm. p. 101. Higden, p. 286. Matth. West. p. 223. Du Cange’s Glossary, in verbo CANTILENA ROLANDI.]
Harold had seized the advantage of a rising ground, and having likewise drawn some trenches to secure his flanks, he resolved to stand upon the defensive, and to avoid all action with the cavalry, in which he was inferior. The Kentish men were placed in the van, a post which they had always claimed as their due: the Londoners guarded the standard: and the king himself, accompanied by his two valiant brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dismounting, placed himself at the head of his infantry, and expressed his resolution to conquer or to perish in the action. The first attack of the Normans was desperate, but was received with equal valour by the English; and after a furious combat, which remained long undecided, the former, overcome by the difficulty of the ground, and hard pressed by the enemy, began first to relax their vigour, then to retreat; and confusion was spreading among the ranks, when William, who found himself on the brink of destruction, hastened with a select band to the relief of his dismayed forces. His presence restored the action; the English were obliged to retire with loss; and the duke, ordering his second line to advance, renewed the attack with fresh forces, and with redoubled courage. Finding that the enemy, aided by the advantage of ground, and animated by the example of their prince, still made a vigorous resistance, he tried a stratagem, which was very delicate in its management, but which seemed advisable in his desperate situation, where, if he gained not a decisive victory, he was totally undone: he commanded his troops to make a hasty retreat, and to allure the enemy from their ground by the appearance of flight. The artifice succeeded against those inexperienced soldiers, who, heated by the action, and sanguine in their hopes, precipitately followed the Normans into the plain. William gave orders, that at once the infantry should face about upon their pursuers, and the cavalry make an assault upon their wings, and both of them pursue the advantage which the surprise and terror of the enemy must give them in that critical and decisive moment. The English were repulsed with great slaughter, and driven back to the hill; where, being rallied by the bravery of Harold, they were able, notwithstanding their loss, to maintain their post, and continue the combat. The duke tried the same stratagem a second time with the same success; but even after this double advantage, he still found a great body of the English, who, maintaining themselves in firm array, seemed determined to dispute the victory to the last extremity. He ordered his heavy-armed infantry to make an assault upon them; while his archers placed behind, should gall the enemy, who were exposed by the situation of the ground, and who were intent on defending themselves against the swords and spears of the assailants. By this disposition he at last prevailed: Harold was slain by an arrow while he was combating with great bravery at the head of his men: his two brothers shared the same fate: and the English, discouraged by the fall of those princes, gave ground on all sides, and were pursued with great slaughter by the victorious Normans. A few troops, however, of the vanquished had still the courage to turn upon their pursuers; and attacking them in deep and miry ground, obtained some revenge for the slaughter and dishonour of the day. But the appearance of the duke obliged them to seek their safety by flight; and darkness saved them from any farther pursuit by the enemy.
Thus was gained by William, Duke of Normandy, the great and decisive victory of Hastings, after a battle which was fought from morning till sunset, and which seemed worthy, by the heroic valour displayed by both armies, and by both commanders, to decide the fate of a mighty kingdom. William had three horses killed under him; and there fell near fifteen thousand men on the side of the Normans: the loss was still more considerable on that of the vanquished; besides the death of the king and his two brothers. The dead body of Harold was brought to William, and was generously restored without ransom to his mother. The Norman army left not the field of battle without giving thanks to Heaven in the most solemn manner for their victory; and the prince, having refreshed his troops, prepared to push to the utmost his advantage against the divided, dismayed, and discomfited English.
APPENDIX I.
THE ANGLO-SAXON GOVERNMENT AND MANNERS.
FIRST SAXON GOVERNMENT.–SUCCESSION OF THE KINGS.–THE WITTENAGEMOT.– THE ARISTOCRACY.–THE SEVERAL ORDERS OF MEN.–COURTS OF JUSTICE.– CRIMINAL LAW.–RULES OF PROOF.–MILITARY FORCE.–PUBLIC REVENUE.– VALUE OF MONEY.–MANNERS.
The government of the Germans, and that of all the northern nations, who established themselves on the ruins of Rome, was always extremely free; and those fierce people, accustomed to independence and inured to arms, were more guided by persuasion than authority, in the submission which they paid to their princes. The military despotism, which had taken place in the Roman empire, and which, previously to the irruption of those conquerors, had sunk the genius of men, and destroyed every noble principle of science and virtue, was unable to resist the vigorous efforts of a free people; and Europe, as from a new epoch, rekindled her ancient spirit, and shook off the base servitude to arbitrary will and authority under which she had so long laboured. The free constitutions then established, however impaired by the encroachments of succeeding princes, still preserve an air of independence and legal administration, which distinguish the European nations; and if that part of the globe maintain sentiments of liberty, honour, equity and valour, superior to the rest of mankind, it owes these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous barbarians.
[MN First Saxon government.]
The Saxons, who subdued Britain, as they enjoyed great liberty in their own country, obstinately retained that invaluable possession in their new settlement; and they imported into this island the same principles of independence which they had inherited from their ancestors. The chieftains (for such they were, more properly than kings or princes) who commanded them in those military expeditions, still possessed a very limited authority; and as the Saxons exterminated, rather than subdued, the ancient inhabitants, they were indeed transplanted into a new territory, but preserved unaltered all their civil and military institutions. The language was pure Saxon; even the names of places, which often remain while the tongue entirely changes, were almost all affixed by the conquerors; the manners and customs were wholly German; and the same picture of a fierce and bold liberty, which is drawn by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, will suit those founders of the English government. The king, so far from being invested with arbitrary power, was only considered as the first among the citizens; his authority depended more on his personal qualities than on his station; he was even so far on a level with the people, that a stated price was fixed for his head, and a legal fine was levied upon his murderer, which, though proportionate to his station, and superior to that paid for the life of a subject, was a sensible mark of his subordination to the community.
[MN Succession of the kings.]
It is easy to imagine, that an independent people, so little restrained by law and cultivated by science, would not be very strict in maintaining a regular succession of their princes. Though they paid great regard to the royal family, and ascribed to it an undisputed superiority, they either had no rule, or none that was steadily observed, in filling the vacant throne; and present convenience, in that emergency, was more attended to than general principles. We are not, however, to suppose that the crown was considered as altogether elective; and that a regular plan was traced by the constitution for supplying, by the suffrages of the people, every vacancy made by the demise of the first magistrate. If any king left a son of an age and capacity fit for government, the young prince naturally stepped into the throne: if he was a minor, his uncle, or the next prince of the blood, was promoted to the government, and left the sceptre to his posterity: any sovereign, by taking previous measures with the leading men, had it greatly in his power to appoint his successor: all these changes, and indeed the ordinary administration of government, required the express concurrence, or at least the tacit acquiescence, of the people; but possession, however obtained, was extremely apt to secure their obedience, and the idea of any right, which was once excluded, was but feeble and imperfect. This is so much the case in all barbarous monarchies, and occurs so often in the history of the Anglo-Saxons, that we cannot consistently entertain any other notion of their government. The idea of an hereditary succession in authority is so natural to men, and is so much fortified by the usual rule in transmitting private possessions, that it must retain a great influence on every society, which does not exclude it by the refinements of a republican constitution. But as there is a material difference between government and private possessions, and every man is not as much qualified for exercising the one, as for enjoying the other, a people, who are not sensible of the general advantages attending a fixed rule, and apt to make great leaps in the succession, and frequently to pass over the person, who, had he possessed the requisite years and abilities, would have been thought entitled to the sovereignty. Thus, these monarchies are not, strictly speaking, either elective or hereditary; and though the destination of a prince may often be followed in appointing his successor, they can as little be regarded as wholly testamentary. The states by their suffrage may sometimes establish a sovereign; but they more frequently recognize the person whom they find established: a few great men take the lead; the people, overawed and influenced, acquiesce in the government; and the reigning prince, provided he be of the royal family, passes undisputedly for the legal sovereign.
[MN The Wittenagemot.]
It is confessed, that our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon history and antiquities is too imperfect to afford us means of determining, with certainty, all the prerogatives of the crown and privileges of the people, or of giving an exact delineation of that government. It is probable, also, that the constitution might be somewhat different in the different kingdoms of the Heptarchy, and that it changed considerably during the course of six centuries, which elapsed from the first invasion of the Saxons till the Norman conquest [a]. But most of these differences and changes, with their causes and effects, are unknown to us. It only appears, that at all times, and in all the kingdoms, there was a national council, called a Wittenagemot, or assembly of the wise men, (for that is the import of the term,) whose consent was requisite for enacting laws, and for ratifying the chief acts of public administration. The preambles to all the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar, Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor; even those to the laws of Canute, though a kind of conqueror, put this matter beyond controversy, and carry proofs everywhere of a limited and legal government. But who were the constituent members of this Wittenagemot has not been determined with certainty by antiquaries. It is agreed, that the bishops and abbots [b] were an essential part; and it is also evident, from the tenour of those ancient laws, that the Wittenagemot enacted statutes which regulated the ecclesiastical as well as civil government, and that those dangerous principles, by which the church is totally severed from the state, were hitherto unknown to the Anglo-Saxons [c]. It also appears, that the aldermen, or governors of counties, who, after the Danish times, were often called earls [d], were admitted into this council, and gave their consent to the public statutes. But besides the prelates and aldermen, there is also mention of the Wites, or Wise-men, as a component part of the Wittenagemot; but who THESE were, is not so clearly ascertained by the laws or the history of that period. The matter would probably be of difficult discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our modern parties have chosen to divide on this point, the question has been disputed with the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both sides have become, on that account, the more captious and deceitful. Our monarchical faction maintain, that these WITES, or SAPIENTES, were the judges, or men learned in the law; the popular faction assert them to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the Commons.
[FN [a] We know of one change, not inconsiderable, in the Saxon constitution. The Saxon Annals, p. 49, inform us, that it was in early times the prerogative of the king to name the dukes, earls, aldermen, and sheriffs of the counties. Asser, a contemporary writer, informs us, that Alfred deposed all the ignorant aldermen, and appointed men of more capacity in their place. Yet the laws of Edward the Confessor, Sec. 35, say expressly, that the Heretoghs or dukes, and the sheriffs, were chosen by the freeholders in the folkmote, a county court, which was assembled once a year, and where all the freeholders swore allegiance to the king. [b] Sometimes abbesses were admitted; at least, they often sign the king’s charters or grants. Spellm. Gloss. in verbo PARLIAMENTUM. [c] Wilkins, passim. [d] See note [G] at the end of the volume.]
The expressions employed by all ancient historians, in mentioning the Wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition. The members are almost always called the PRINCIPES, SATRAPAE, OPTIMATES, MAGNATES, PROCERES; terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude the Commons. The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were so small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on the great men [e], that it seemed nowise probable they would be admitted as a part of the national councils. The Commons are well known to have had no share in the governments established by the Franks, Burgundians, and other northern nations; and we may conclude that the Saxons, who remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than those tribes, would never think of conferring such an extraordinary privilege on trade and industry. The military profession alone was honourable among all those conquerors; the warriors subsisted by their possessions in land; they became considerable by their influence over their vassals, retainers, tenants, and slaves; and it requires strong proof to convince us that they would admit any of a rank so much inferior as the burgesses, to share with them in the legislative authority. Tacitus indeed affirms, that among the ancient Germans, the consent of all the members of the community was required in every important deliberation; but he speaks not of representatives; and this ancient practice, mentioned by the Roman historian, could only have place in small tribes, where every citizen might, without inconvenience, be assembled upon any extraordinary emergency. After principalities became extensive; after the difference of property had formed distinctions more important than those which arose from personal strength and valour, we may conclude, that the national assemblies must have been more limited in their number, and composed only of the more considerable citizens.
[FN [e] Brady’s Treatise of English Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c.]
But though we must exclude the burgesses, or Commons from the Saxon Wittenagemot, there is some necessity for supposing that this assembly consisted of other members than the prelates, abbots, aldermen, and the judges or privy council. For as all these, excepting some of the ecclesiastics [f], were anciently appointed by the king, had there been no other legislative authority, the royal power had been in a great measure absolute, contrary to the tenour of all the historians, and to the practice of all the northern nations. We may therefore conclude, that the more considerable proprietors of land were, without any election, constituent members of the national assembly; there is reason to think that forty hides, or between four and five thousand acres, was the estate requisite for entitling the possessor to this honourable privilege. We find a passage in an ancient author [g], by which it appears, that a person of very noble birth, even one allied to the crown, was not esteemed a PRINCEPS (the term usually employed by ancient historians, when the Wittenagemot is mentioned) till he had acquired a fortune of that amount. Nor need we imagine that the public council would become disorderly or confused by admitting so great a multitude. The landed property of England was probably in few hands during the Saxon times; at least during the latter part of that period; and as men had hardly any ambition to attend those public councils, there was no danger of the assembly’s becoming too numerous for the despatch of the little business which was brought before them. [FN [f] There is some reason to think, that the bishops were sometimes chosen by the Wittenagemot, and confirmed by the king. Eddius, cap. 2. The abbots in the monasteries of royal foundation were anciently named by the king; though Edgar gave the monks the election, and only reserved to himself the ratification. This destination was afterwards frequently violated; and the abbots, as well as bishops were afterwards all appointed by the king; as we learn from Ingulph, a writer contemporary with the conquest. [g] Hist. Eliensis, lib. 2 cap. 40.]
It is certain, that, whatever we may determine concerning the constituent members of the Wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the legislature resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period preceding the Norman conquest, was become extremely aristocratical; the royal authority was very limited; the people, even if admitted to that assembly, were of little or no weight and consideration. We have hints given us in historians, of the great power and riches of particular noblemen: and it could not but happen, after the abolition of the Heptarchy, when the king lived at a distance from the provinces, that those great proprietors, who resided on their estates, would much augment their authority over their vassals and retainers, and over all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Hence the immeasurable power assumed by Harold, Godwin, Leofric, Siward, Morcar, Edwin, Edric, and Alfric, who controlled the authority of the kings, and rendered themselves quite necessary in the government. The two latter, though detested by the people, on account of their joining a foreign enemy, still preserved their power and influence; and we may therefore conclude, that their authority was founded, not on popularity, but on family rights and possessions. There is one Athelstan, mentioned in the reign of the king of that name, who is called Alderman of all England, and is said to be half-king; though the monarch himself was a prince of valour and abilities [h]. And we find, that in the latter Saxon times, and in these alone, the great office went from father to son, and became in a manner hereditary in the families [i].
[FN [h] Hist. Rames. Sec. 3, p. 387. [i] Roger Hoveden, giving the reason why William the Conqueror made Cospatric Earl of Northumberland, says, NAM EX MATERNO SANGUINE ATTINEBAT AD EUM HONOR ILLIUS COMITATUS. ERAT ENIM EX MATRE ALGITHA, FILIA UTHREDI COMITIS. See also Sim. Dun. p. 205. We see in those instances the same tendency towards rendering offices hereditary, which took place, during a more early period, on the continent, and which had already produced there its full effect.]
The circumstances attending the invasions of the Danes would also serve much to increase the power of the principal nobility. Those freebooters made unexpected inroads on all quarters; and there was a necessity that each county should resist them by its own force, and under the conduct of its own nobility and its own magistrates. For the same reason that a general war, managed by the united efforts of the state, commonly augments the power of the crown; those private wars and inroads turned to the advantage of the aldermen and nobles.
Among that military and turbulent people, so averse to commerce and the arts, and so little inured to industry, justice was commonly very ill administered, and great oppression and violence seem to have prevailed. These disorders would be increased by the exorbitant power of the aristocracy; and would, in their turn, contribute to increase it. Men, not daring to rely on the guardianship of the laws, were obliged to devote themselves to the service of some chieftain, whose orders they followed, even to the disturbance of the government, or the injury of their fellow-citizens, and who afforded them, in return, protection from any insult or injustice by strangers. Hence, we find by the extracts which Dr. Brady has given us from Domesday, that almost all the inhabitants, even of towns, had placed themselves under the clientship of some particular nobleman, whose patronage they purchased by annual payments, and whom they were obliged to consider as their sovereign, more than the king himself, or even the legislature [k]. A client, though a freeman, was supposed so much to belong to his patron, that his murderer was obliged by law to pay a fine to the latter, as a compensation for his loss; in like manner as he paid a fine to the master for the murder of his slave [l]. Men who were of a more considerable rank, but not powerful enough each to support himself by his own independent authority, entered into formal confederacies with each other, and composed a kind of separate community, which rendered itself formidable to all aggressors. Dr. Hickes has preserved a curious Saxon bond of this kind, which he calls a SODALITIUM, and which contains many particulars characteristical of the manners and customs of the times [m]. All the associates are there said to be gentlemen of Cambridgeshire, and they swear before the holy relics to observe their confederacy, and to be faithful to each other: they promise to bury any of the associates who dies, in whatever place he had appointed; to contribute to his funeral charges, and to attend at his interment; and whoever is wanting in this last duty, binds himself to pay a measure of honey. When any of the associates is in danger, and calls for the assistance of his fellows, they promise, besides flying to his succour, to give information to the sheriff; and if he be negligent in protecting the person exposed to danger, they engage to levy a fine of one pound upon him: if the president of the society himself be wanting in this particular, he binds himself to pay one pound; unless he has the reasonable excuse of sickness, or of duty to his superior. When any of the associates is murdered, they are to exact eight pounds from the murderer; and if he refuse to pay it, they are to prosecute him for the sum at their joint expense. If any of the associates who happens to be poor kill a man, the society are to contribute, by a certain proportion, to pay his fine: a mark a-piece if the fine be seven hundred shillings; less if the person killed be a clown or ceorle; the half of that sum, again, if he be a Welshman. But where any of the associates kills a man, wilfully and without provocation, he must himself pay the fine. If any of the associates kill any of his fellows in a like criminal manner, besides paying the usual fine to the relations of the deceased, he must pay eight pounds to the society, or renounce the benefit of it; in which case, they bind themselves, under the penalty of one pound, never to eat or drink with him, except in the presence of the king, bishop, or alderman. There are other regulations to protect themselves and their servants from all injuries, to revenge such as are committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to each other; and the fine, which they engage to pay for this last offence, is a measure of honey.
[FN [k] Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, &c. The case was the same with the freemen in the country. See Pref. to his Hist. p. 8, 9, 10, &c. [1] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 8. apud Ingulph. [m] Dissert. Epist. p. 21.]
It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been a great source of friendship and attachment; when men lived in perpetual danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received protection chiefly from their personal valour, and from the assistance of their friends or patrons. As animosities were then more violent, connexions were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from blood: the most remote degree of propinquity was regarded: an indelible memory of benefits was preserved: severe vengeance was taken for injuries, both from a point of honour, and as the best means of future security: and the civil union being weak, many private engagements were contracted in order to supply its place, and to procure men that safety which the laws and their own innocence were not alone able to insure to them.
On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body even of the free citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty, than where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil magistrate. The reason is derived from the excess itself of that liberty. Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and magistrate, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by herding in some private confederacy which acts under the direction of a powerful leader. And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of tyranny, if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals. Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the Wittenagemot, both in going and returning, EXCEPT THEY WERE NOTORIOUS THIEVES AND ROBBERS.
[MN The several orders of men.]
The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were divided into three ranks of men, the noble, the free, and the slaves [n]. This distinction they brought over with them into Britain. [FN [n] Nithard. Hist. lib. 4.]
The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king’s thanes and lesser thanes. The latter seem to have been dependent on the former; and to have received lands, for which they paid rent, services, or attendance in peace and war [o]. We know of no title which raised any one to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the possession of land. The former was always much regarded by all the German nations, even in their most barbarous state; and as the Saxon nobility, having little credit, could scarcely burthen their estates with much debt, and as the Commons had little trade or industry by which they could accumulate riches, these two ranks of men, even though they were not separated by positive laws, might remain long distinct, and the noble families continue many ages in opulence and splendour. There were no middle ranks of men that could gradually mix with their superiors, and insensibly procure to themselves honour and distinction. If by any extraordinary accident a mean person acquired riches, a circumstance so singular made him be known and remarked; he became the object of envy, as well as of indignation, to all the nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend what he had acquired; and he would find it impossible to protect himself from oppression, except by courting the patronage of some great chieftain, and paying a large price for his safety.
[FN [o] Spellm. Feuds and Tenures, p. 40.]
There are two statutes among the Saxon laws which seem calculated to confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was entitled to the quality of thane [p]; and that of the same prince, by which a ceorle or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides of land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised to the same distinction [q]. But the opportunities were so few, by which a merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank, that the law could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the distinction between noble and base blood would still be indelible; and the well-born thanes would entertain the highest contempt for those legal and factitious ones. Though we are not informed of any of these circumstances by ancient historians, they are so much founded on the nature of things, that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible consequence of the situation of the kingdom during those ages. [FN [p] Wilkins, p. 71. [q] Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 515. Wilkins, p. 70.]
The cities appear by Domesday-book to have been at the Conquest little better than villages [r]. York itself, though it was always the second, at least the third [s], city in England, and was the capital of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest, contained but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families [t]. Malmsbury tells us [u], that the great distinction between the Anglo-Saxon nobility, and the French or Norman was, that the latter built magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed their immense fortunes in riot and, hospitality, and in mean houses. We may thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced in England than in France; a greater number of idle servants and retainers lived about the great families; and as these, even in France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England. When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from all parts his huscarles or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was pleased to impose upon him.
[FN [r] Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon monarchy, was anciently a considerable city. Gul. Pict. p. 210. [s] Norwich contained 738 houses, Exeter 315, Ipswich 538, Northampton 60, Hereford 146, Canterbury 262, Bath 64, Southampton 84, Warwick 225. See Brady of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, &c. These are the most considerable he mentions. The account of them is extracted from Domesday-book. [t] Brady’s Treatise of Boroughs, p. 10. There were six wards, besides the archbishop’s palace; and five of these wards contained the number of families here mentioned, which, at the rate of five persons to a family, makes about 7000 souls. The sixth ward was laid waste. [u] p. 102. See also, De Gest. Angl. p. 333.]
The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the Anglo-Saxons; and, where they were industrious, they were chiefly employed in husbandry: whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a manner synonymous terms. They cultivated the farms of the nobility or thanes, for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been removeable at pleasure. For there is little mention of leases among the Anglo-Saxons; the pride of the nobility, together with the general ignorance of writing, must have rendered these contracts very rare, and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition. The rents of farms were then chiefly paid in kind [w]. [FN [w] LL. Inae, Sec. 70. These laws fixed the rents for a hide; but it is difficult to convert it into modern measures.]
But the most numerous rank by far in the community seems to have been the slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property. Dr. Brady assures us, from a survey of Domesday-book [x], that in all the counties of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by them, and that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were tenants that could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in comparison. This was not the case with the German nations, as far as we can collect from the account given us by Tacitus. The perpetual wars in the Heptarchy, and the depredations of the Danes, seem to have been the cause of this great alteration with the Anglo-Saxons. Prisoners taken in battle, or carried off in the frequent inroads, were then reduced to slavery; and became, by right of war [y], entirely at the disposal of their lords. Great property in the nobles, especially if joined to an irregular administration of justice, naturally favours the power of the aristocracy; but still more so if the practice of slavery be admitted, and has become very common. The nobility not only possess the influence which always attends riches, but also the power which the laws give them over their slaves and villains. It then becomes difficult, and almost impossible, for a private man to remain altogether free and independent.
[FN [x] General Preface to his Hist. p. 7, 8, 9 &c. [y] LL. Edg. Sec. 14 apud Spellm. Conc. vol. 1. p. 471.]
There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household slaves, after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic, after the manner of’ the Germans [z]. These latter resembled the serfs, which are at present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and some parts of Germany. The power of a master over his slaves was not unlimited among the Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors. If a man beat out his slave’s eye or teeth, the slave recovered his liberty [a]: if he killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided the slave died within a day after the wound or blow; otherwise it passed unpunished [b]. The selling of themselves or children to slavery was always the practice among the German nations [c], and was continued by the Anglo-Saxons [d].
[FN [z] Spellm. Gloss. in verb. SERRUS [a] LL. Aelf. Sec. 20. [b] Ibid 17. [c] Tacit. de Morib. Germ. [d] LL. Inae, Sec. 11 LL. Aelf. Sec. 12.]
The great lords and abbots among the Anglo-Saxons possessed a criminal jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish without appeal, any thieves or robbers whom they caught there [e]. This institution must have had a very contrary effect to that which was intended, and must have procured robbers a sure protection on the lands of such noblemen as did not sincerely mean to discourage crimes and violence.
[FN [e] Higden, lib. 1. cap. 50. LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 26. Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 415. Gloss. in verb. HALIGEMOT ET INFANGENTHEFE.]
[MN Courts of justice.]
But though the general strain of the Anglo-Saxon government seems to have become aristocratical, there were still considerable remains of the ancient democracy, which were not indeed sufficient to protect the lowest of the people, without the patronage of some great lord, but might give security, and even some degree of dignity, to the gentry, or inferior nobility. The administration of justice, in particular, by the courts of the decennary, the hundred, and the county, was well calculated to defend general liberty, and to restrain the power of the nobles. In the county courts, or shiremotes, all the freeholders were assembled twice a year, and received appeals from the inferior courts. They there decided all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil; and the bishop, together with the alderman or earl, presided over them [f]. The affair was determined in a summary manner, without much pleading, formality, or delay, by a majority of voices; and the bishop and alderman had no farther authority than to keep order among the freeholders, and interpose with their opinion [g]. Where justice was denied during three sessions by the hundred, and then by the county court, there lay an appeal to the king’s court [h]; but this was not practised on slight occasions. The alderman received a third of the fines levied in those courts [i]; and as most of the punishments were then pecuniary, this perquisite formed a considerable part of the profits belonging to his office. The two-thirds also which went to the king, made no contemptible part of the public revenue. Any freeholder was fined who absented himself thrice from these courts [k].
[FN [f] LL. Edg. Sec. 5. Wilkins, p. 78. LL. Canut. Sec. 17. Wilkins, p. 136. [g] Hickes, Dissert. Epist. p. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. [h] LL. Edg Sec. 2. Wilkins, p. 77. LL. Canut. Sec. 18. apud Wilkins, p. 136. [i] LL. Edw. Conf. Sec. 31. [k] LL. Ethelst. Sec. 20.]
As the extreme ignorance of the age made deeds and writings very rare, the county or hundred court was the place where the most remarkable civil transactions were finished, in order to preserve the memory of them, and prevent all future disputes. Here testaments were promulgated, slaves manumitted, bargains of sale concluded; and sometimes, for greater security, the most considerable of these deeds were inserted in the blank leaves of the parish bible, which thus became a kind of register too sacred to be falsified. It was not unusual to add to the deed an imprecation on all such as should be guilty of that crime [l].
[FN [1] Hickes, Dissert. Epist.]
Among a people, who lived in so simple a manner as the Anglo-Saxons, the judicial power is always of greater importance than the legislative. There were few or no taxes imposed by the states; there were few statutes enacted; and the nation was less governed by laws than by customs, which admitted a great latitude of interpretation. Though it should therefore be allowed that the Wittenagemot was altogether composed of the principal nobility, the county courts, where all the freeholders were admitted, and which regulated all the daily occurrences of life, formed a wide basis for the government, and were no contemptible checks on the aristocracy. But there is another power still more important than either the judicial or legislative; to wit, the power of injuring or serving by immediate force and violence, for which it is difficult to obtain redress in courts of justice. In all extensive governments, where the execution of the laws is feeble, this power naturally falls into the hands of the principal nobility; and the degree of it which prevails cannot be determined so much by the public statutes, as by small incidents in history, by particular customs, and sometimes by the reason and nature of things. The Highlands of Scotland have long been entitled by law to every privilege of British subjects; but it was not till very lately that the common people could in fact enjoy these privileges.
The powers of all the members of the Anglo-Saxon government are disputed among historians and antiquaries; the extreme obscurity of the subject, even though faction had never entered into the question, would naturally have begotten those controversies. But the great influence of the lords over their slaves and tenants, the clientship of the burghers, the total want of a middling rank of men, the extent of the monarchy, the loose execution of the laws, the continued disorders and convulsions of the state; all these circumstances evince that the Anglo-Saxon government became at last extremely aristocratical; and the events, during the period immediately preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or conjecture.
[MN Criminal law.]
Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of judicature, and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear somewhat singular, and are very different from those which prevail at present among all civilized nations.
We must conceive that the ancient Germans were little removed from the original state of nature: the social confederacy among them was more martial than civil: they had chiefly in view the means of attack or defence against public enemies, not those of protection against their fellow-citizens: their possessions were so slender and so equal, that they were not exposed to great danger; and the natural bravery of the people made every man trust to himself, and to his particular friends, for his defence or vengeance. This defect in the political union drew much closer the knot of particular confederacies; an insult upon any man was regarded by all his relations and associates as a common injury; they were bound by honour, as well as by a sense of common interest, to revenge his death, or any violence which he had suffered: they retaliated on the aggressor by like acts of violence; and if he were protected, as was natural and usual, by his own clan, the quarrel was spread still wider, and bred endless disorders in the nation.
The Frisians, a tribe of the Germans, had never advanced beyond this wild and imperfect state of society; and the right of private revenge still remained among them unlimited and uncontrolled [m]. But the other German nations, in the age of Tacitus, had made one step farther towards completing the political or civil union. Though it still continued to be an indispensable point of honour for every clan to revenge the death or injury of a member, the magistrate had acquired a right of interposing in the quarrel, and of accommodating the difference. He obliged the person maimed or injured, and the relations of one killed, to accept of a present from the aggressor and his relations [n], as a compensation for the injury [o], and to drop all farther prosecution of revenge. That the accommodation of one quarrel might not be the source of more, this present was fixed and certain, according to the rank of the person killed, or injured, and was commonly paid in cattle, the chief property of those rude and uncultivated nations. A present of this kind gratified the revenge of the injured family, by the loss which the aggressor suffered; it satisfied their pride, by the submission which it expressed; it diminished their regret for the loss or injury of a kinsman, by their acquisition of new property; and thus general peace was for a moment restored to the society [p].
[FN [m] LL. Fris. tit. 2. apud. Lindenbrog. p. 491. [n] LL. Aethelb. Sec. 23. LL. Aelf. Sec. 27. [o] Called by the Saxons MOEGBOTA. [p] Tacit. de Morib. Germ. The author says, that the price of the composition was fixed; which must have been by the laws and the interposition of the magistrates.]
But when the German nations had been settled some time in the provinces of the Roman empire, they made still another step towards a more cultivated life, and their criminal justice gradually improved and refined itself. The magistrate, whose office it was to guard public peace, and to suppress private animosities, conceived himself to be injured by every injury done to any of his people; and besides the compensation to the person who suffered, or to his family, he thought himself entitled to exact a fine called the Fridwit as an atonement for the breach of peace, and as a reward for the pains which he had taken in accommodating the quarrel. When this idea, which is so natural, was once suggested, it was willingly received both by sovereign and people. The numerous fines which were levied augmented the revenue of the king; and the people were sensible that he would be more vigilant in interposing with his good offices, when he reaped such immediate advantage from them; and that injuries would be less frequent, when, besides compensation to the person injured, they were exposed to this additional penalty [q].
[FN [q] Besides paying money to the relations of the deceased, and to the king, the murderer was also obliged to pay the master of a slave or vassal a sum as a compensation for his loss. This was called the MANBOTE. See Spell. Gloss. in verb. FREDUM, MANBOT.]
This short abstract contains the history of the criminal jurisprudence of the northern nations for several centuries. The state of England in this particular, during the period of the Anglo-Saxons, may be judged of by the collection of ancient laws, published by Lambard and Wilkins. The chief purport of these laws is not to prevent or entirely suppress private quarrels, which the legislature knew to be impossible, but only to regulate and moderate them. The laws of Alfred enjoin, that if any one know that his enemy or aggressor, after doing him an injury, resolves to keep within his own house, AND HIS OWN LANDS [r], he shall not fight him till he require compensation for the injury. If he be strong enough to besiege him in his house, he may do it for seven days without attacking him; and if the aggressor be willing, during that time, to surrender himself and his arms, his adversary may detain him thirty days; but is afterwards obliged to restore him safe to his kindred, AND BE CONTENT WITH THE COMPENSATION. If the criminal fly to the temple, that sanctuary must not be violated. Where the assailant has not force sufficient to besiege the criminal in his house, he must apply to the alderman for assistance; and if the alderman refuse aid, the assailant must have recourse to the king; and he is not allowed to assault the house till after this supreme magistrate has refused assistance. If any one meet with his enemy, and be ignorant that he was resolved to keep within his own lands, he must, before he attack him, require him to surrender himself prisoner, and deliver up his arms; in which case he may detain him thirty days: but if he refuse to deliver up his arms, it is then lawful to fight him. A slave may fight in his master’s quarrel: a father may fight in his son’s with any one, except with his master [s].
[FN [r] The addition of these last words in Italics appears necessary from what follows in the same law. [s] LL. Aelfr. Sec. 28 Wilkins, p. 43.]
It was enacted by King Ina, that no man should take revenge for an injury till he had first demanded compensation, and had been refused it [t].
[FN [t] LL. Inae, Sec. 9.]
King Edmond, in the preamble to his laws, mentions the general misery occasioned by the multiplicity of private feuds and battles; and he establishes several expedients for remedying this grievance. He ordained that if any one commit murder, be may, with the assistance of his kindred, pay within a twelvemonth the fine of his crime; and if they abandon him, he shall alone sustain the deadly feud or quarrel with the kindred of the murdered person: his own kindred are free from the feud, but on condition that they neither converse with the criminal, nor supply him with meat or OTHER NECESSARIES: if any of them, after renouncing him, receive him into their house, OR GIVE HIM ASSISTANCE, they are finable to the king, and are involved in the feud. If the kindred of the murdered person take revenge on any but the criminal himself, AFTER HE IS ABANDONED BY HIS KINDRED, all their property is forfeited, and they are declared to be enemies to the king and all his friends [u]. It is also ordained, that the fine for murder shall never be remitted by the king [w]; and that no criminal shall be killed who flies to the church, or any of the king’s towns [x]; and the king himself declares, that his house shall give no protection to murderers, till they have satisfied the church by their penance, and the kindred of the deceased, by making compensation [y]. The method appointed for transacting this composition is found in the same law [z].
[FN [u] LL. Edm. Sec. 1. Wilkins, p. 73. [w] LL. Edm. Sec. 3. [x] Ibid. Sec. 2. [y] Ibid. Sec. 4. [z] Ibid Sec. 7.]
These attempts of Edmond, to contract and diminish the feuds, were contrary to the ancient spirit of the northern barbarians, and were a step towards a more regular administration of justice. By the Salic law, any man might, by a public declaration, exempt himself from his family quarrels: but then he was considered by the law as no longer belonging to the family; and he was deprived of all right of succession, as the punishment of his cowardice [a]. [FN [a] Tit. 63.]
The price of the king’s head, or his weregild, as it was then called, was by law thirty thousand thrimsas, near thirteen hundred pounds of present money. The price of the prince’s head was fifteen thousand thrimsas; that of a bishop’s or alderman’s, eight thousand; a sheriff’s four thousand; a thane’s or clergyman’s, two thousand; a ceorle’s, two hundred and sixty-six. These prices were fixed by the laws of the Angles. By the Mercian law, the price of a ceorle’s head was two hundred shillings; that of a thane’s six times as much; that of a king’s six times more [b]. By the laws of Kent, the price of the archbishop’s head was higher than that of the king’s [c]. Such respect was then paid to the ecclesiastics! It must be understood, that where a person was unable or unwilling to pay the fine, he was put out of the protection of law, and the kindred of the deceased had liberty to punish him as they thought proper. [FN [b] Wilkins, p. 71, 72. [c] LL. Elthredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.]
Some antiquarians [d] have thought, that these compensations were only given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder: but no such distinction appears in the laws; and it is contradicted by the practice of all the other barbarous nations [e], by that of the ancient Germans [f], and by that curious monument above mentioned, a Saxon antiquity, preserved by Hickes. There is indeed a law of Alfred’s, which makes wilful murder capital [g]; but this seems only to have been an attempt of that great legislator towards establishing a better police in the kingdom, and it probably remained without execution. By the laws of the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be redeemed by a fine [h].
[FN [d] Tyrrel, Introduction, vol. i. p.126. Carte, vol. i. p. 366. [e] Lindenbrogius, passim. [f] Tac. de Mor. Germ. [g] LL. Aelf. Sec. 12. Wilkins, p. 29. It is probable that by wilful murder Alfred means a treacherous murder, committed by one who had no declared feud with another. [h] LL. Aelf. Sec. 4 Wilkins, p. 35.]
The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws: a wound of an inch long under the hair, was paid with one shilling; one of a like size in the face, two shillings: thirty shillings for the loss of an ear, and so forth [i]. There seems not to have been any difference made, according to the dignity of the person. By the laws of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with his neighbour’s wife, was obliged to pay him a fine, and buy him another wife [k]. [FN [i] LL. Elf. Sec. 40. See also, LL. Ethelb. Sec. 34, &c. [k] LL. Ethelb. Sec. 32.]
These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans. They seem to be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every free people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed. We find them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan war. Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor’s speech to Achilles in the ninth Iliad and are called APOINAI. The Irish, who never had any connexions with the German nations, adopted the same practice till very lately; and the price of a man’s head was called among them his ERIC; as we learn from Sir John Davis. The same custom seems also to have prevailed among the Jews [l]. [FN [l] Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]
Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons. In order to impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man should sell or buy any thing above twenty-pence value, except in open market [m]; and every bargain of sale must be executed before witnesses [n]. Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the country; and the law determined, that a tribe of banditti, consisting of between seven and thirty-five persons, was to be called a TURMA, or troop: any greater company was denominated an army [o]. The punishments for this crime were various, but none of them capital [p]. If any man could track his stolen cattle into another’s ground, the latter was obliged to show the tracks out of it, or pay their value [q].
[FN [m] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 12. [n] Ibid. Sec. 10, 12. LL. Edg. apud Wilkins, p. 80. LL. Ethelredi, Sec. 4 apud Wilkins, p. 103. Hloth. and Eadm. Sec. 16. LL. Canut. Sec. 22. [o] LL. Inae, Sec. 12. [p] LL. Inae, Sec. 37. [q] LL. Aethelst. Sec. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]
Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital, but might be redeemed by a sum of money [r]. The legislators, knowing it impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine on breaches of the peace committed in the king’s court, or before an alderman or bishop. An alehouse too seems to have been considered as a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more severely punished than elsewhere [s].
[FN [r] LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110. LL. Aelf. Sec. 4. Wilkins, p. 35. [s] LL. Hloth. and Eadm. Sec. 12, 13. LL. Ethelr. apud Wilkins, p. 117.]
[MN Rules of proof.]
If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural result of the situation of the people. Whatever we may imagine concerning the usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and barbarous state, there is much more falsehood, and even perjury among them, than among civilized nations; virtue which is nothing but a more enlarged and more cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree, nor is founded on steady principles of honour, except where a good education becomes general; and where men are taught the pernicious consequences of vice, treachery, and immorality. Even superstition, though more prevalent among ignorant nations, is but a poor supply for the defects in knowledge and education: our European ancestors, who employed every moment the expedient of swearing on extraordinary crosses and relics, were less honourable in all engagements than their posterity, who, from experience, have omitted those ineffectual securities. This general proneness to perjury was much increased by the usual want of discernment in judges, who could not discuss an intricate evidence, and were obliged to number, not weigh, the testimony of the witnesses [t]. Hence the ridiculous practice of obliging men to bring compurgators, who, as they did not pretend to know any thing of the fact, expressed upon oath, that they believed the person spoke true; and these compurgators were in some cases multiplied to the number of three hundred [u]. The practice also of single combat was employed by most nations on the continent as a remedy against false evidence [w]; and though it was frequently dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it was continually revived from experience of the falsehood attending the testimony of witnesses [x]. It became at last a species of jurisprudence: the cases were determined by law, in which the party might challenge his adversary, or the witnesses, or the judge himself [y]: and though these customs were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the methods of trial which had formerly been practised among those barbarous nations, and which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons. [FN [t] Sometimes the laws fixed easy general rules for weighing the credibility of witnesses. A man whose life was estimated at 120 shillings, counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only valued at 20 shillings, and his oath was deemed equivalent to that of all the six. See Wilkins, p. 72. [u] Praef. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p 11. [w] LL. Burgund. cap. 45. LL. Lomb. lib. 2. tit. 55, cap. 34. [x] LL. Longob. lib. 2. tit. 55. cap. 23. apud Landenb. p. 661. [y] See Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]
When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the judgment of God; that is, to fortune: their methods of consulting this oracle were various. One of them was the decision of the CROSS: it was practised in this manner: when a person was accused of any crime, he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven compurgators. He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was marked with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he placed them on the altar, or on some celebrated relic. After solemn prayers for the success of the experiment, a priest, or, in his stead, some unexperienced youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he happened upon that which was marked with the figure of the cross, the person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty [z]. This practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by it in France. The emperor, Lewis the Debonnaire, prohibited that method of trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred figure, says he, of the cross should be prostituted in common disputes and controversies [a].
[FN [z] LL. Frison. tit. 14. apud Lindenbrogium, p. 496. [a] Du Cange, in verb. CRUX.]
The ordeal was another established method of trial among the Anglo- Saxons. It was practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron. The former was appropriated to the common people; the latter to the nobility. The water or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses, fastings, and exorcisms [b]; after which the person accused either took up a stone sunk in the water [c] to a certain depth, or carried the iron to a certain distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the covering sealed for three days, if there appeared, on examining it, no marks of burning, he was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty [d]. The trial by cold water was different: the person was thrown into consecrated water; if he swam, he was guilty; if he sunk, innocent [e]. It is difficult for us to conceive how any innocent person could ever escape by the one trial, or any criminal be convicted by the other. But there was another usage admirably calculated for allowing every criminal to escape who had confidence enough to try it. A consecrated cake, called a corsned, was produced; which if the person could swallow and digest he was pronounced innocent [f].
[FN [b] Spellm. in verb. ORDEAL. Parker, p. 155. Lindenbrog. p 1299. [c] LL. Inae, Sec. 77. [d] Sometimes the person accused walked barefoot over red-hot iron. [e] Spellm. in verb. ORDEALIUM. [f] Spellm. in verb. CORSNED Parker, p. 156. Text. Roffens. p. 33.]
[MN Military force.]
The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which is doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property, and was not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs [g], wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it in the kingdoms of the continent. As the Saxons expelled, or almost entirely destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in this island on the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and found no occasion for the feudal institutions [h], which were calculated to maintain a kind of standing army, always in readiness to suppress any insurrection among the conquered people. The trouble and expense of defending the state in England lay equally upon all the land; and it was usual for every five hides to equip a man for the service. The TRINODA NECESSITAS, as it was called, or the burden of military expeditions, of repairing highways, and of building and supporting bridges, was inseparable from landed property, even though it belonged to the church or monasteries, unless exempted by a particular charter [i]. The ceorles or husbandmen were provided with arms, and were obliged to take their turn in military duty [k]. There were computed to be two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England [l]; consequently, the ordinary military force of the kingdom consisted of forty-eight thousand seven hundred and twenty men; though, no doubt, on extraordinary occasions, a greater number might be assembled. The king and nobility had some military tenants, who were called Sithcun-men [m]. And there were some lands annexed to the office of alderman, and to other offices; but these probably were not of great extent, and were possessed only during pleasure, as in the commencement of the feudal law in other countries of Europe. [FN [g] On the death of an alderman, a greater or lesser thane, there was a payment made to the king of his best arms; and this was called his heriot: but this was not of the nature of a relief. See Spellm. of Tenures, p. 2. The value of this heriot fixed by Canute’s laws, Sec. 69. [h] Bracton de Acqu. rer. domin. lib. 2. cap. 16. See more fully Spellman of Feuds and Tenures, and Craigius de jure feud. lib. 1. dieg. 7. [i] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 256. [k] Inae, Sec. 51. [l] Spellm. of Feuds and Tenures, p. 17. [m] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 195.]
[MN Public revenue.]
The revenue of the king seems to have consisted chiefly in his demesnes, which were large; and in the tolls and imposts which he probably levied at discretion on the boroughs and seaports that lay within his demesnes. He could not alienate any part of the crown lands, even to religious uses, without the consent of the states [n]. Danegelt was a land-tax of a shilling a hide, imposed by the states [o], either for payment of the sums exacted by the Danes, or for putting the kingdom in a posture of defence against those invaders [p].
[FN [n] Spellm. Conc. vol. i. p. 340. [o] Chron. Sax p. 128. [p] LL. Edw. Con. Sec. 12.]
[MN Value of money.]
The Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries after the Conquest, was near three times the weight of our present money: there were forty-eight shillings in the pound, and five pence in a shilling [q]; consequently, a Saxon shilling was near a fifth heavier than ours, and a Saxon penny near three times as heavy [r]. As to the value of money in those times, compared to commodities, there are some, though not very certain, means of computation. A sheep, by the laws of Athelstan, was estimated at a shilling; that is, fifteen pence of our money. The fleece was two fifths of the value of the whole sheep [s]; much above its present estimation; and the reason probably was, that the Saxons, like the ancients, were little acquainted with any clothing but what was made of wool. Silk and cotton were quite unknown: linen was not much used. An ox was computed at six times the value of a sheep; a cow at four [t]. If we suppose that the cattle in that age, from the defects in husbandry, were not so large as they are at present in England, we may compute that money was then near ten times of greater value. A horse was valued at about thirty-six shillings of our money, or thirty Saxon shillings [u]; a mare a third less A man at three pounds [w]. The board wages of a child the first year was eight shillings, together with a cow’s pasture in summer, and an ox’s in winter [x]. William of Malmesbury mentions it as a remarkably high price, that William Rufus gave fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty pounds of our present money [y]. Between the years 900 and 1000, Ednoth bought a hide of land for about a hundred and eighteen shillings of our present money [z]. This was little more than a shilling an acre, which indeed appears to have been the usual price, as we may learn from other accounts [a]. A palfrey was sold for twelve shillings about the year 966 [b]. The value of an ox in King Ethelred’s time was between seven and eight shillings; a cow about six shillings [c]. Gervas of Tilbury says, that in Henry I.’s time, bread which would suffice a hundred men for a day was rated at three shillings, or a shilling of that age; for it is thought that, soon after the Conquest, a pound sterling was divided into twenty shillings: a sheep was rated at a shilling; and so of other things in proportion. In Athelstan’s time a ram was valued at a shilling, or four pence Saxon [d]. The tenants of Shireburn were obliged, at their choice, to pay either sixpence or four hens [e]. About 1232, the Abbot of St. Alban’s going on a journey, hired seven handsome stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to pay the owner thirty shillings a-piece of our present money [f]. It is to be remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn, especially wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity always bore a higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our times [g]. The Saxon Chronicle tells us [h], that in the reign of Edward the Confessor, there was the most terrible famine ever known; insomuch that a quarter of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen shillings of our present money. Consequently it was as dear as if it now cost seven pounds ten shillings. This much exceeds the great famine in the end of Queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold for four pounds. Money in this last period was nearly of the same value as in our time. These severe famines are a certain proof of bad husbandry.
[FN [q] LL. Aelf. Sec. 40. [r] Fleetwood’s Chron. Pretiosum, p. 27, 28, &c. [s] LL. Inae, Sec. 69. [t] Wilkins, p 66. [u] Ibid. p. 126. [w] Ibid. [x] LL. Inae, Sec. 38. [y] p. 121. [z] Hist. Rames, p. 415. [a] Hist. Eliens. p. 473. [b] Ibid. p. 471. [c] Wilkins, p. 126. [d] Ibid. p. 56. [e] Monast. Anglic. vol. ii. p. 528. [f] Mat. Paris. [g] Fleetwood, p. 83, 94, 96, 98. [h] p. 157.]
On the whole, there are three things to be considered, wherever a sum of money is mentioned in ancient times. First, the change of denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of its ancient weight in silver. Secondly, the change in value by the greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver to ten times less value compared to commodities; and consequently a pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the ancient value. Thirdly, the fewer people and less industry, which were then to be found in every European kingdom. This circumstance made even the thirtieth part of the sum more difficult to levy, and caused any sum to have more than thirty times greater weight and influence, both abroad and at home, than in our times; in the same manner that a sum, a hundred thousand pounds, for instance, is at present more difficult to levy in a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce greater effects on such a small community, than on England. This last difference is not easy to be calculated: but allowing that England has now six times more industry, and three times more people than it had at the Conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum of money mentioned by historians, as if it were multiplied more than a hundredfold above a sum of the same denomination at present.
In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male children of the deceased, according to the custom of Gavelkind. The practice of entails is to be found in those times [i]. Land was chiefly of two kinds, bockland, or land held by book or charter, which was regarded as full property, and descended to the heirs of the possessor; and folkland, or the land held by the ceorles and common people, who were removable at pleasure, and were indeed only tenants during the will of their lords.
[FN [i] LL Aelf. Sec. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.]
The first attempt which we find in England to separate the ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar, by which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before the bishop [k]. The penances were then very severe; but as a man could buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform them, they lay easy upon the rich [l].
[FN [k] Wilkins, p. 83. [l] Wilkins, p. 96, 97. Spellm. Conc. p. 473.]
[MN Manners.]
With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons we can say little, but that they were in general a rude uncultivated people, ignorant of letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion made upon them by the Duke of Normandy [m]. The Conquest put the people in a situation of receiving slowly, from abroad, the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting their rough and licentious manners.
[FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 202.]
CHAPTER IV.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.–SUBMISSION OF THE ENGLISH.– SETTLEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT.–KING’S RETURN TO NORMANDY.–DISCONTENTS OF THE ENGLISH.–THEIR INSURRECTIONS.–RIGOURS OF THE NORMAN GOVERNMENT.–NEW INSURRECTIONS.–NEW RIGOURS OF THE GOVERNMENT.– INTRODUCTION OF THE FEUDAL LAW.–INNOVATION IN ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT.–INSURRECTION OF THE NORMAN BARONS.–DISPUTE ABOUT INVESTITURES.–REVOLT OF PRINCE ROBERT.–DOMESDAY-BOOK.–THE NEW FOREST.–WAR WITH FRANCE.–DEATH AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
[MN 1066. Consequences of the battle of Hastings.] Nothing could exceed the consternation which seized the English, when they received intelligence of the unfortunate battle of Hastings, the death of their king, the slaughter of their principal nobility and of their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion of the remainder. But though the loss which they had sustained in that fatal action was considerable, it might have been repaired by a great nation; where the people were generally armed, and where there resided so many powerful noblemen in every province, who could have assembled their retainers, and have obliged the Duke of Normandy to divide his army, and probably to waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters. It was thus that the kingdom had formerly resisted, for many years, its invaders, and had been gradually subdued, by the continued efforts of the Romans, Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been apprehended by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise. But there were several vices in the Anglo-Saxon constitution, which rendered it difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an emergency. The people had in a great measure lost all national pride and spirit, by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as Canute had, in the course of his administration, much abated the rigours of conquest, and had governed them equitably by their own laws, they regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign yoke, and deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than those of bloodshed, war, and resistance. Their attachment also to the ancient royal family had been much weakened by their habits of submission to the Danish princes, and by their late election of Harold, or their acquiescence in his usurpation. And as they had long been accustomed to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon line, as unfit to govern them even in times of order and tranquillity, they could entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such great losses as they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious arms of the Duke of Normandy.
That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common enemy. The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion: in concert with Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of great authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and endeavoured to put the people in a posture of defence, and encouraged them to resist the Normans [a]. But the terror of the late defeat, and the near neighbourhood of the invaders, increased the confusion inseparable from great revolutions: and every resolution proposed was hasty, fluctuating, tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction, ill-planned, and worse executed.
[FN [a] Gul. Pictav. p. 205. Order. Vitalis, p. 502. Hoveden, p. 449. Knyghton, p. 2343.]
William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their consternation, or unite their councils, immediately put himself in motion after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise which nothing but celerity and vigour could render finally successful. His first attempt was against Romney, whose inhabitants he severely punished, on account of their cruel treatment of some Norman seamen and soldiers, who had been carried thither by stress of weather, or by a mistake in their course [b]; and foreseeing that his conquest of England might still be attended with many difficulties and with much opposition, he deemed it necessary, before he should advance farther into the country, to make himself master of Dover, which would both secure him a retreat in case of adverse fortune, and afford him a safe landing-place for such supplies as might be requisite for pushing his advantages. The terror diffused by his victory at Hastings was so great, that the garrison of Dover, though numerous and well provided, immediately capitulated; and as the Normans, rushing in to take possession of the town, hastily set fire to some of the houses, William, desirous to conciliate the minds of the English by an appearance of lenity and justice, made compensation to the inhabitants for their losses [c].
[FN [b] Gul. Pictav. p. 204. [c] Gul. Pictav. p. 204.]
The Norman army, being much distressed with a dysentery, was obliged to remain here eight days, but the duke, on their recovery, advanced with quick marches towards London, and by his approach increased the confusions which were already so prevalent in the English councils. The ecclesiastics in particular, whose influence was great over the people, began to declare in his favour; and as most of the bishops and dignified clergymen were even then Frenchmen or Normans, the pope’s bull, by which his enterprise was avowed and hallowed, was now openly insisted on as a reason for general submission. The superior learning of those prelates, which, during the Confessor’s reign, had raised them above the ignorant Saxons, made their opinions be received with implicit faith; and a young prince, like Edgar, whose capacity was deemed so mean, was but ill qualified to resist the impression which they made on the minds of the people. A repulse which a body of Londoners received from five hundred Norman horse, renewed in the city the terror of the great defeat at Hastings; the easy submission of all the inhabitants of Kent was an additional discouragement to them; the burning of Southwark before their eyes made them dread a like fate to their own city; and no man any longer entertained thoughts but of immediate safety and of self-preservation. Even the Earls Edwin and Morcar, in despair of making effectual resistance, retired with their troops to their own provinces; and the people thenceforth disposed themselves unanimously to yield to the victor. As soon as he passed the Thames at Wallingford, and reached Berkhamstead, Stigand, the primate, made submissions to him: before he came within sight of the city, all the chief nobility, and Edgar Atheling himself, the new- elected king, came into his camp, and declared their intention of yielding to his authority [d]. They requested him to mount their throne, which they now considered as vacant; and declared to him, that as they had always been ruled by regal power, they desired to follow, in this particular, the example of their ancestors, and knew of no one more worthy than himself to hold the reins of government [e]. [FN [d] Hoveden, p. 450. Flor. Wigorn. p. 634. [e] Gul. Pict. p. 205. Ord. Vital. p. 503.]
Though this was the great object to which the duke’s enterprise tended, he feigned to deliberate on the offer; and being desirous at first of preserving the appearance of a legal administration, he wished to obtain a more explicit and formal consent of the English nation [f]: but Almar, of Aquitain, a man equally respected for valour in the field and for prudence in council, remonstrating with him on the danger of delay in so critical a conjuncture, he laid aside all farther scruples, and accepted of the crown which was tendered him. Orders were immediately issued to prepare every thing for the ceremony of his coronation; but as he was yet afraid to place entire confidence in the Londoners, who were numerous and warlike, he meanwhile commanded fortresses to be erected, in order to curb the inhabitants, and to secure his person and government [g]. [FN [f] Gul. Pictav. p. 205. [g] Ibid.]
Stigand was not much in the duke’s favour, both because he had intruded into the see on the expulsion of Robert the Norman, and because he possessed such influence and authority over the English [h], as might be dangerous to a new-established monarch. William, therefore, pretending that the primate had obtained his pall in an irregular manner from Pope Benedict IX., who was himself an usurper, refused to be consecrated by him, and conferred this honour on Aldred, Archbishop of York. Westminster Abbey was the place appointed for that magnificent ceremony; the most considerable of the nobility, both English and Norman, attended the duke on this occasion: [MN 1066. Dec.] Aldred, in a short speech, asked the former whether they agreed to accept of William as their king: the Bishop of Coutance put the same question to the latter; and both being answered with acclamations [i], Aldred administered to the duke the usual coronation oath, by which he bound himself to protect the church, to administer justice, and to repress violence: he then anointed him, and put the crown upon his head [k]. There appeared nothing but joy in the countenances of the spectators: but in that very moment there burst forth the strongest symptoms of the jealousy and animosity which prevailed between the nations, and which continually increased during the reign of this prince. The Norman soldiers, who were placed without, in order to guard the church, hearing the shouts within, fancied that the English were offering violence to their duke; and they immediately assaulted the populace, and set fire to the neighbouring houses. The alarm was conveyed to the nobility who surrounded the prince; both English and Normans, full of apprehensions, rushed out to secure themselves from the present danger; and it was with difficulty that William himself was able to appease the tumult [l]. [FN [h] Eadmer, p. 6. [i] Order. Vital. p. 503. [k] Malmesbury, p. 271, says, that he also promised to govern the Normans and English by equal laws; and this addition to the usual oath seems not improbable, considering the circumstances of the times. [l] Gul. Pict. p. 206. Order. Vitalis, p. 503.]
[MN 1067. Settlement of the government.] The king, thus possessed of the throne by a pretended destination of King Edward, and by an irregular election of the people, but still more by force of arms, retired from London to Berking, in Essex, and there received the submissions of all the nobility who had not attended his coronation. Edric, surnamed the Forester, grand-nephew to that Edric, so noted for his repeated acts of perfidy during the reigns of Ethelred and Edmond; Earl Coxo, a man famous for bravery; even Edwin and Morcar, Earls of Mercia and Northumberland, with the other principal noblemen of England, came and swore fealty to him; were received into favour, and were confirmed in the possession of their estates and dignities [m]. Every thing bore the appearance of peace and tranquillity; and William had no other occupation than to give contentment to the foreigners who had assisted him to mount the throne, and to his new subjects, who had so readily submitted to him. [FN [m] Gul. Pict. p. 208. Order. Vitalis, p. 506.]
He had got possession of the treasure of Harold, which was considerable; and being also supplied with rich presents from the opulent men in all parts of England, who were solicitous to gain the favour of their new sovereign, he distributed great sums among his troops, and by this liberality gave them hopes of obtaining at length those more durable establishments which they had expected from his enterprise [n]. The ecclesiastics, both at home and abroad, had much forwarded his success, and he failed not, in return, to express his gratitude and devotion in the manner which was most acceptable to them: he sent Harold’s standard to the pope, accompanied with many valuable presents: all the considerable monasteries and churches in France, where prayers had been put up for his success, now tasted of his bounty [o]: the English monks found him well disposed to favour their order; and be built a new convent near Hastings, which he called BATTLE ABBEY, and which, on pretence of supporting monks to pray for his own soul, and for that of Harold, served as a lasting memorial of his victory [p].
[FN [n] Gul. Pict. p. 206. [o] Ibid. [p] Gul. Gemet. p. 288. Chron. Sax. p. 189. M. West. p. 226. M. Paris p. 9. Diceto, p. 482. This convent was freed by him from all episcopal jurisdiction. Monast. Ang. tom. i. p. 311, 312.]
He introduced into England that strict execution of justice for which his administration had been much celebrated in Normandy; and even during this violent revolution, every disorder or oppression met with rigorous punishment [q]. His army, in particular, was governed with severe discipline; and, notwithstanding the insolence of victory, care was taken to give as little offence as possible to the jealousy of the vanquished. The king appeared solicitous to unite, in an amicable manner, the Normans and the English, by intermarriages and alliances, and all his new subjects who approached his person were received with affability and regard. No signs of suspicion appeared, not even towards Edgar Atheling, the heir of the ancient royal family, whom William confirmed in the honours of Earl of Oxford, conferred on him by Harold, and whom he affected to treat with the highest kindness, as nephew to the Confessor, his great friend and benefactor. Though he confiscated the estates of Harold, and of those who had fought in the battle of Hastings on the side of that prince, whom he represented as an usurper, he seemed willing to admit of every plausible excuse for past opposition to his pretensions, and he received many into favour who had carried arms against him. He confirmed the liberties and immunities of London and the other cities of England, and appeared desirous of replacing every thing on ancient establishments. In his whole administration he bore the semblance of the lawful prince, not of the conqueror; and the English began to flatter themselves that they had changed, not the form of their government, but the succession only of their sovereigns, a matter which gave them small concern. The better to reconcile his new subjects to his authority, William made a progress through some parts of England; and besides a splendid court and majestic presence, which overawed the people, already struck with his military fame, the appearance of his clemency and justice gained the approbation of the wise, attentive to the first steps of their new sovereign.
[FN [q] Gul. Pict. p. 208. Order. Vital. p. 506.]
But amidst this confidence and friendship which he expressed for the English, the king took care to place all real power in the hands of his Normans, and still to keep possession of the sword, to which he was sensible he had owed his advancement to sovereign authority. He disarmed the city of London and other places, which appeared most warlike and populous; and building citadels in that capital, as well as in Winchester, Hereford, and the cities best situated for commanding the kingdom, he quartered Norman soldiers in all of them, and left no where any power able to resist or oppose him. He bestowed the forfeited estates on the most eminent of his captains, and established funds for the payment of his soldiers. And thus, while his civil administration carried the face of a legal magistrate, his military institutions were those of a master and tyrant; at least of one who reserved to himself; whenever he pleased, the power of assuming that character.
[MN 1067. King’s return to Normandy.] By this mixture, however, of vigour and lenity, he had so soothed the minds of the English, that he thought he might safely revisit his native country, and enjoy the triumph and congratulation of his ancient subjects. He left the administration in the hands of his uterine brother, Odo, Bishop of Baieux, and of William Fitz-Osberne. [MN March.] That their authority might be exposed to less danger, he carried over with him all the most considerable nobility of England, who, while they served to grace his court by their presence and magnificent retinues, were in reality hostages for the fidelity of the nation. Among these were Edgar Atheling, Stigand the Primate, the Earls Edwin and Morcar, Waltheof, the son of the brave Earl Siward, with others eminent for the greatness of their fortunes and families, or for their ecclesiastical and civil dignities. He was visited at the abbey of Fescamp, where he resided, during some time, by Rodulph, uncle to the King of France, and by many powerful princes and nobles, who, having contributed to his enterprise, were desirous of participating in the joy and advantages of its success. His English courtiers, willing to ingratiate themselves with their new sovereign, outvied each other in equipages and entertainments; and made a display of riches which struck the foreigners with astonishment. William of Poictiers, a Norman historian [r], who was present, speaks with admiration of the beauty of their persons, the size and workmanship of their silver plate, the costliness of their embroideries, an art in which the English then excelled; and he expresses himself in such terms as tend much to exalt our idea of the opulence and cultivation of the people [s]. But though every thing bore the face of joy and festivity, and William himself treated his new courtiers with great appearance of kindness, it was impossible altogether to prevent the insolence of the Normans; and the English nobles derived little satisfaction from those entertainments, where they considered themselves as led in triumph by their ostentatious conqueror. [FN [r] P. 211, 212. [s] As the historian chiefly insists on the silver plate, his panegyric on the English magnificence shows only how incompetent a judge he was of the matter. Silver was then of ten times the value, and was more than twenty times more rare than at present; and consequently, of all species of luxury, plate must have been the rarest.]
[MN 1067. Discontents of the English.] In England affairs took still a worse turn during the absence of the sovereign. Discontents and complaints multiplied every where; secret conspiracies were entered into against the government; hostilities were already begun in many places; and every thing seemed to menace a revolution, as rapid as that which had placed William on the throne. The historian above-mentioned, who is a panegyrist of his master, throws the blame entirely on the fickle and mutinous disposition of the English, and highly celebrates the justice and lenity of Odo’s and Fitz-Osberne’s administration [t]. But other historians, with more probability, impute the cause chiefly to the Normans, who, despising a people that had so easily submitted to the yoke, envying their riches, and grudging the restraints imposed upon their own rapine, were desirous of provoking them to a rebellion, by which they expected to acquire new confiscations and forfeitures, and to gratify those unbounded hopes which they had formed in entering on this enterprise [u].
[FN [t] P. 212. [u] Order. Vital. p. 507.]
It is evident that the chief reason of this alteration in the sentiments of the English must be ascribed to the departure of William, who was alone able to curb the violence of his captains and to overawe the mutinies of the people. Nothing indeed appears more strange, than that this prince, in less than three months after the conquest of a great, warlike, and turbulent nation, should absent himself in order to revisit his own country, which remained in profound tranquillity, and was not menaced by any of its neighbours; and should so long leave his jealous subjects at the mercy of an insolent and licentious army. Were we not assured of the solidity of his genius, and the good sense displayed in all other circumstances of his conduct, we might ascribe this measure to a vain ostentation, which rendered him impatient to display his pomp and magnificence among his ancient subjects. It is therefore more natural to believe, that in so extraordinary a step he was guided by a concealed policy, and that, though he had thought proper at first to allure the people to submission by the semblance of a legal administration, he found that he could neither satisfy his rapacious captains, nor secure his unstable government without farther exerting the rights of conquest, and seizing the possessions of the English. In order to have a