38

LOCAL INSTITUTIONS.

distinction of thanes and ceorls. The thanes themselves are subdivided into king's thanes and inferior thanes. The former are large landed proprietors, the latter hold smaller estates but both classes possess equal rights. The ceorls are freemen, without landed property, at least originally. Most of them fall into a state of servitude. With regard to the slaves, we can say nothing except that they were very numerous, and were divided into domestic servants and rural serfs, or serfs of the glebe. The ancient inhabitants of the country did not all fall into servitude; some of them retained their possessions, and a law of King Ina authorized them. to appear before courts of justice. They might even pass into the class of thanes if they possessed five hides of land.

The thanes alone, to speak truly, played an active part in history.

Passing now to the institutions which connected and governed these different classes, we find them to be of two kinds; central institutions, entirely in the hands of the thanes, the object of which was to secure the intervention of the nation in its own government; and local institutions, which regulated those local interests and guarantees which applied equally to all classes of the community.

At the origin of Anglo-Saxon society, there existed none but local institutions. In these are contained the most important guarantees for men whose life never goes beyond the boundaries of their fields. At such epochs, men are as yet unacquainted with great social life; and as the scope of institutions always corresponds to the scope of the affairs and relations to which they have reference, it follows that when relations are limited, institutions are equally so. They continue local, because all interests are local; there are very few, if any, general taxes and affairs of public concern; the kings live, like their subjects, on the income derived from their estates. The proprietors care little about what is passing at a distance. The idea of those great public agencies which regulate the affairs of all men, does not belong to the origin of societies. By degrees, in the midst of the chaos of the rising society, small aggregations are formed which feel the want of alliance and union with each other. They establish amongst themselves an administration of justice, a public militia, a system of taxation and police. Soon, inequality

ORIGIN OF CENTRALIZATION.

39

of strength is displayed among neighbouring aggregations. The strong tend to subjugate the weak, and usurp, at first, the rights of taxation and military service. Thus, political authority leaves the aggregations which first instituted it, to take a wider range. This system of centralization is not always imposed by force: it sometimes has a more legitimate cause. In times of difficulty, a superior man appears who makes his influence first felt in the society to which he belongs. When attacked, the society intrusts him with its defence. Neighbouring societies follow this example; soon the powers granted in time of war are continued in time of peace, and remain concentrated in a single hand. This victorious power retains the right to levy men and money. These are the rights of which the movement of centralization first deprives small local societies; they retain for a longer period the rights of administering justice, and establishing police regulations; they may even retain them for a very long while, and England offers us many such examples.

The preponderance of local institutions belongs to the infancy of societies. Civilization incessantly tends to carry power still higher; for power, when exercised from a greater distance, is generally more disinterested, and more capable of taking justice and reason for its sole guides. But frequently also, as it ascends, power forgets its origin and final destiny; it forgets that it was founded to maintain all rights, to respect all liberties; and meeting with no further obstacles from the energy of local liberties, it becomes transformed into despotism. This result is not, however, necessary and fatal; society, while labouring for the centralization of authority, may retain, or regain at a later period, certain principles of liberty. When central institutions have obtained too absolute a prevalence, society begins to perceive the defects inherent in an edifice which is detached, as it were, from the soil on which it stands. Society then constructs upon itself the exact opposite of what it built before; looks narrowly into the private and local interests of which it is composed; duly appreciates their necessities and rights; and, sending back to the different localities the authorities which had been withdrawn therefrom, makes an appropriate distri bution of power. When we study the institutions of France, we shall be presented with the greatest and clearest example

40

EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

of this double history. We shall perceive the great French society formed from a multitude of little aggregations, and tending incessantly to the concentration of the different powers contained within it. One great revolution almost entirely destroyed every vestige of our ancient local institutions, and led to the centralization of all power. We now suffer from the excesses of this system; and having returned to just sentiments of practical liberty, we are desirous to restore to localities the life of which they have been deprived, and to resuscitate local institutions, with the concurrence and by the action of the central power itself. Great oscillations like these constitute the social life of humanity, and the history of civilization.

LOCAL INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND.

41

LECTURE IV.

Local institutions among the Anglo-Saxons.-Divisions of territory; their origin and double object.-Internal police of these local associations. Importance of the county-courts; their composition and attributes.-Complex origin of the Jury.-Central institutions of the Anglo-Saxons.-The Wittenagemot; its composition, and the principle on which it was based.-Increasing preponderance of the large landowners in the Anglo-Saxon monarchy.

IN my preceding lecture I pointed out the causes of the special importance of local institutions, at that epoch in the development of civilization which now occupies our attention. I now proceed to examine into those institutions.

They were of two kinds. One class bound man to a supe rior, established a certain right of man over man, a personal pre-eminence and subordination, which were the source of mutual duties. On the Continent, this hierarchy of persons became the first principle of feudalism, which would perhaps have received only a very imperfect development in England, had not William the Conqueror transplanted it to that country in its complete state. The other class of local institutions bound men of equal rank to each other, regulated their mutual relations, and defined their reciprocal rights and duties. The first class marked a relationship of protection and dependence; the second summoned all the inhabitants of the same territory, possessing the same rights and the same obligations, to deliberate in common upon affairs of common interest. These were the predominant institutions of the Anglo-Saxons. Norman feudalism could not entirely abolish them.

At this period, England was divided into tithings, hundreds, and counties. This division has been attributed to King Alfred: he seems to be the founder of all the legislation of this epoch, because it all issues in a fixed and precise form from his reign; but he found it already in existence, and did nothing more than arrange it in a written code. He did not, then, originate this division of territory, which appears to be based upon the ecclesiastical partition of the country. After

42

DIVISIONS OF THE SOIL.

their settlement in Great Britain, the Saxons did not divide it into systematically determined portions, but adopted what they found already established. The portions of territory which were under the direction of the decanus, the decanus ruralis, and the bishop, formed respectively the tithing, the hundred, and the county. We must not, however, suppose that these names correspond precisely to realities. The tithings and hundreds were not all equal in extent of soil and number of inhabitants. There were sixty-five hundreds in Sussex, twenty-six in Yorkshire, and six in Lancashire. In the north of England, the hundreds bore another name; they were called Wapentakes. Here the ecclesiastical division ceases, and a military circumscription prevailed, which still subsists in some counties. An analogous circumscription has continued to the present day in the Grisons, in Switzerland.

These divisions of the soil had a double object. On the one hand, they formed the most certain means of insuring order and discipline; and on the other hand, they supplied the inhabitants with the most convenient method for transacting their public business in common.

By a police regulation which I have already mentioned, every free individual, above twelve years of age, was obliged to enrol himself in a certain association, which he could not abandon without the permission of the chief. A stranger might not remain for more than two days with a friend, unless his host gave surety for him, and at the end of forty days he was compelled to place himself under the surveillance of some association. It is remarkable that the details of these laws of classification and subordination were almost the same in all those parts of the Roman Empire occupied by the barbarians in Gaul and Spain, as well as in England. When one of the members of a special association had committed a crime, the association was obliged to bring him to trial. This point has given rise to much discussion among learned men. Some have maintained that the association was bail for its

From wapen, weapons, and tac, a touch, i. e. a shaking or striking of the arms; or from the same wapen, and tac, a taking or receiving of the vassal's arms by a new lord in token of subjection; or because the people, in confirmation of union, touch the weapon of their lord. See Blackstone, Introd., sec. 4. and Holinshed, vol. v. p. 37.