H́nh ảnh trang
PDF
ePub

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 whole 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. 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

Erat

"Nam ex materno sanguine attinebat ad eum honor illius comitatus. enim ex matre Algitha, filia Uthredi comitis." See also Sim. Dunelm. 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. k Brady's Treatise of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, etc. The case was the same with the freemen in the country. See Pref. to his Hist. p. 8, 9, 10, etc.

.

master for the murder of his slave'. 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 reliques 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 A 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 m Dissert. Epist. p. 21.

LL. Edw. Conf. Sect. viii. apud Ingulph.

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 revengè 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.

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 and 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 magistrates, 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.

[blocks in formation]

The several orders of

men.

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."

66

The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were divided into three ranks of men, the noble, the free, and the slaves". This distinction they brought over with them into Britain.

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.

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'; and that of the same prince, by

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

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". 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 wellborn 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.

The cities appear by domesday-book to have been at the conquest little better than villages'. York itself, though it was always the second, at least the third city in England, and was the capital of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest, contained then but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families'. Malmsbury tells us ", 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 God

a Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 515. Wilkins, p. 70. 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, Hertford 146, Canterbury 262, Bath 64, Southampton 84, Warwick 225. See Brady of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. 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. Page 102. See also de Gest. Angl. p. 333.

41

« TrướcTiếp tục »