which they called the Folkmote, or Leet, and there became reciprocally bound to each other and to the public for their own peaceable behavior and that of their families and dependants.  Every man in the kingdom, except those who belonged to the seigneurial courts we have mentioned, was obliged to enter himself into some tithing:  to this he was inseparably attached; nor could he by any means quit it without license from the head of the tithing; because, if he was guilty of any misdemeanor, his district was obliged to produce him or pay his fine.  In this manner was the whole nation, as it were, held under sureties:  a species of regulation undoubtedly very wise with regard to the preservation of peace and order, but equally prejudicial to all improvement in the minds or the fortunes of the people, who, fixed invariably to the spot, were depressed with all the ideas of their original littleness, and by all that envy which is sure to arise in those who see their equals attempting to mount over them.  This rigid order deadened by degrees the spirit of the English, and narrowed their conceptions.  Everything was new to them, and therefore everything was terrible; all activity, boldness, enterprise, and invention died away.  There may be a danger in straining too strongly the bonds of government.  As a life of absolute license tends to turn men into savages, the other extreme of constraint operates much in the same manner:  it reduces them to the same ignorance, but leaves them nothing of the savage spirit.  These regulations helped to keep the people of England the most backward in Europe; for though the division into shires and hundreds and tithings was common to them with the neighboring nations, yet the frankpledge seems to be a peculiarity in the English Constitution; and for good reasons they have fallen into disuse, though still some traces of them are to be found in our laws.

[Sidenote:  Hundred Court.]

Ten of these tithings made an Hundred.  Here in ordinary course they held a monthly court for the centenary, when all the suitors of the subordinate tithings attended.  Here were determined causes concerning breaches of the peace, small debts, and such matters as rather required a speedy than a refined justice.

[Sidenote:  County Court.]

[Sidenote:  Ealdorman and Bishop.]

There was in the Saxon Constitution a great simplicity.  The higher order of courts were but the transcript of the lower, somewhat more extended in their objects and in their power; and their power over the inferior courts proceeded only from their being a collection of them all.  The County or Shire Court was the great resort for justice (for the four great courts of record did not then exist).  It served to unite all the inferior districts with one another, and those with the private jurisdiction of the thanes.  This court had no fixed place.  The alderman of the shire appointed it.  Hither came to account for their own conduct, and that of those beneath them,