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The Making of the English Constitution, 449-1485

1909; Oxford University Press; Volume: 14; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1832684

1937-5239

N. M. Trenholme, Albert Beebe White,

Medieval Literature and History

England from the Anglo-Saxon conquest to the Norman Conquest, 449-1066.d. England from the Norman Conquest to the end of the middle ages, the period when the English con- stitution was in the making, 1066-1485.e.The modern period, when the constitution was tested and developed.Constitutional history has nothing to do with the first division, and very little to do with the second, from which latter period little or nothing that is found in the later English government cameOur institu- tional story has its beginning in the third division, the Anglo-Saxon period.It is exceedingly important to notice, however, that this is distinctly an introductory period.I_n_its_ fullest sense, English constitutionalĥ istory did not begin until the Norman Conquest, because, until that time, there were not present in England all the materials out of which the constitu-" tion was to grow.The Norman people, with the in- stitutions it had developed in Normandy, was lacking.The most important period in our study is the great creative period following the Norman Conquest.This book deals with the introductory, or Anglo-Saxon period, and with the creative period, which latter, speaking broadly, ends with the middle ages.The Anglo-Saxon period is filled with problems.Maitland states an important truth about all early insti- tutions in the following words concerning primitive law :The grown man will find it easier to think the thoughts of the school-boy than to think the thoughts of the baby. *Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 9.The Anglo-Saxon Period sturdily, but for the most part unsuccessfully, to bridge.At the centre, were the king and the witqn, strengthened in later times by the king's local officials, the sheriffs; in the localities, were those institutions and customs in hundred and shire, by virtue of whicJT the people lived in some degree of peace and administ ered a rude justice.The local government was more important than the central; that is, most of the_reaT governing was done by local means.To local institu- tions and customs, then, especial study must be given, not because they involve the solution of interesting puzzles, but because their subject-matter lies at the very root of the history of the English constitution. 1In order to understand how the early Englishmen governed themselves in their localities, we must be able to answer such fundamental questions as these:Were the majority of the men freemen or serfs?Was there a nobility?How was the land held?Did the people live together in villages or were they scattered ?How were their local assemblies made up ?Were there varying grades of assemblies, and, if so, how were they related?How were their laws made and how were they enforced?Though they might be multiplied indefinitely, these inquiries serve to indicate the nature of the subject-matter and the important lines of investigation in the early Anglo-Saxon period. 2We are now to deal with the institutions of a country > It will become apparent that England is not alone concerned here, but that we are looking into some of the basic matters of the constitutional history of all Germanic peoples.J It should be said in advance that our knowledge of all Anglo-Saxon local institutions is still very incomplete, and that on many important matters scholars are far from being in agreement.This work can attempt nothing more than to reflect the present stage ofThe Anglo-Saxon Period abhorrence of the cold and rainy climate, we may feel sure that disinclination was added to inability.And so the Romanisation of Britain did not go much below the surface.This is not to deny that many striking things were accomplished. Many military stationswere founded, some of which early grew into consider- able cities; magnificent roads were built; colonists settled in favourable places, established villas on a large scale, and lived in great state ; mines were worked as never before; Bath became a fashionable resort, and London a commercial centre.But all this was done without touching the mass of the population.A super- ficial observer of the time, visiting London and York, might have come to the conclusion that the same thing had happened in Britain that had happened in Gaul and Spain.But outside the city walls and the few Roman villas was the old wild, tribal, druidical Britain; and the material remains of Rome's occupation which one sees in England to-day are out of all pro- portion to the effect which that occupation had upon the Britons themselves.A satisfactory refutation of the theory of a continuance of Roman law and custom is that, in the, later England, there is almost nothing Roman whose origin cannot be traced to some later importation.When, in the early years of the fifth century, Stilicho recalled the legions from Britain, the Roman inhabitants of the island were left unpro- tected from the wild native tribes; these Romans of necessity followed the legions, and the native Britons were left to work out their own salvation in the troub- lous times that followed.Only about a generation intervened between this and the conquest of the country by German tribes from the continent.There were 1 See Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation, for valuable investigations concerning the original location of the Angles and Saxons and the primitive civilisation of the Angles.2 Chadwick conjectures that the invaders of southern Britain were termed Saxons by the natives because of one or more reigning families there of Saxon extraction, and that, in general, Angles and Saxons were mingled in the invasion, the Angles probably con- stituting the nobility.Kent, the Isle of Wight, and part of Hampshire were settled by Jutes, Ibid., passim.toThe Anglo-Saxon Period cattle, and household goods were probably left behind at first.It was only very gradually and after much fighting that, precisely after the fashion of the Danes, four centuries later, the invaders became colonists and brought over what they would permanently need.We may well suppose that the invaders were, for the most part, freemen, although the non-noble freemen probably did not come in great numbers until the fighters had gained a hold upon the soil.There would be small use in bringing slaves when plenty could be had from among the conquered Britons, and without doubt many wives were provided from the same source.It is also warrantable to suppose that, whatever minor class distinctions may have existed in the fatherland, the leaving all the old associations, going a long sea voyage in small boats, and settling a new country, where land was plenty but had to be fought for, had a levelling and democratising effect.The actual coming in of the Anglo-Saxons lasted over a century, and it was two centuries before the conquest of the island approached completion.That the invasion of Britain was extremely slow should be carefully noted here, for it helps account for the conditions which prevailed in the succeeding period.Of the immediate results of the contact between Britons and Teutons, perhaps the most striking and important was that the^Britons were exterminated or displaced with comparative completeness_in_the extreme east and south-east, and that as the invasion extended towards the west, larger and larger numbers remained alive and on their land. 1The ground was not 1 It may be useful here to point out some important methods of investigating early Anglo-Saxon history.The most obvious method, Anglo-Saxon Conquest and its Problems n tested with the same desperation by the natives when they had much territory to withdraw to as when they found that territory growing dangerously limited.This is not to deny, however, a very sturdy resist- ance at all times.On the other hand, the invasion spent its force in the east, where the first comers settled down and occupied the land.The more re- mote regions were taken up more gradually by smaller bands that represented later and more straggling arrivals from the continent, or, as was often the case, colonies that left the older and more thickly settled portions near the shore.Long contact had also tem- pered the race animosity that seems to have been bitter at first.The conquerors were learning that the Britons might be made very useful, and the latter were coming to choose a life of greater or less servility in preference to death.At the conclusion of the conquest, then, England presented by no means a uniform appearance, of studying any period is, of course, to collect all the written records, public and private, of that period, organise them, study them critically, and draw conclusions.But, as has been before stated, written documents relating to the period in question are so scantyThe Anglo-Saxon Period The Angles and Saxons seized upon the characteristic small settlements or single farms of the Celts, and, without making important changes, appropriated them, and kept the former holders to labour as slaves ; whereas in the east, the traces of the older agrarian system were quite obliterated in the course of the long conflict (after a hundred years, the invasion had advanced but a surprisingly little way inland) , and when the newcomers settled down to cultivate the land, they had no ready-made system to adopt.Between these two types of settlement, there was doubtless a great number of variations.There may also have been places where the Roman villa, that great estate, owned by one lord and worked by slaves and coloni, was taken possession of by the conqueror, who now became the lord,