IV.—­England

The Anglo-Saxon polity limited the succession of the Crown to a particular house but allowed a latitude of choice within that house.  The community was divided into Thames or gentry, Ceorls or freemen, and serfs.  The ceorls tended to sink to the position known later as villeinage.  The composition of the king’s great council called the Witenagemot is doubtful.  The country was divided into shires, the shire into districts called hundreds, and the hundreds into tithings.  There appears to be no adequate authority for the idea that trial by jury was practised; the prevailing characteristic of justice was the system of penalty by fine, and the responsibility of the tithing for the misdeeds of any of its members.  There is no direct evidence as to the extent to which feudal tenures were beginning to be established before the Norman conquest.

The Norman conquest involved a vast confiscation of property and the exclusion of the native English from political privileges.  The feudal system of land tenure was established; but its political aspect here and in France was quite different.  There were no barons with territories comparable to those of the great French feudataries.  That the government was extremely tyrannical is certain.  The Crown derived its revenues from feudal dues, customs duties, tallages—­that is, special charges on particular towns,—­and the war tax called the Danegelt; all except the first being arbitrary taxes.  The violence of King John led to the demand of the barons for the Great Charter, the keystone of English liberty, securing the persons and property of all freemen from arbitrary imprisonment or spoliation.  Thenceforth no right of general taxation is claimed.  The barons held themselves warranted in refusing supplies.

The King’s Court was gradually separated into three branches, King’s Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas.  The advance in the study of law had the definite effect of establishing a fixed rule of succession to the Crown.  One point must still be noticed which distinguishes England from other European countries; that the law recognises no distinction of class among freemen who stand between the peers and villeins.

The reign of Edward I. forms an epoch.  The Confirmation of the Charters put an end to all arbitrary taxation; and the type of the English Parliament was fixed.  In the Great Councils the prelates and greater barons had assembled, and the lesser barons were also summoned; the term baron being equivalent to tenant in chief.  A system of representation is definitely formulated in Montfort’s Parliament of 1265.  Whether the knights were elected by the freemen of the shire or only by the tenants in chief, is not clear.  Many towns were self governing—­independent, that is, of local magnates—­under charters from the Crown.  Montfort’s Parliament is the first to which towns sent representatives.  Edward established the practice in his Model Parliament; probably in order to ensure that his demands for money from the towns might in appearance at least receive their formal assent.