the bailiffs of hundreds and tithings and boroughs, with their people,—­the thanes of either rank, with their dependants,—­a vast concourse of the clergy of all orders:  in a word, of all who sought or distributed justice.  In this mixed assembly the obligations contracted in the inferior courts were renewed, a general oath of allegiance to the king was taken, and all debates between the several inferior cooerdinate jurisdictions, as well as the causes of too much weight for them, finally determined.  In this court presided (for in strict signification he does not seem to have been a judge) an officer of great consideration in those times, called the Ealdorman of the Shire.  With him sat the bishop, to decide in whatever related to the Church, and to mitigate the rigor of the law by the interposition of equity, according to the species of mild justice that suited the ecclesiastical character.  It appears by the ancient Saxon laws, that the bishop was the chief acting person in this court.  The reverence in which the clergy were then held, the superior learning of the bishop, his succeeding to the power and jurisdiction of the Druid, all contributed to raise him far above the ealdorman, and to render it in reality his court.  And this was probably the reason of the extreme lenity of the Saxon laws.  The canons forbade the bishops to meddle in cases of blood.  Amongst the ancient Gauls and Germans the Druid could alone condemn to death; so that on the introduction of Christianity there was none who could, in ordinary course, sentence a man to capital punishment:  necessity alone forced it in a few cases.

Concerning the right of appointing the Alderman of the Shire there is some uncertainty.  That he was anciently elected by his county is indisputable; that an alderman of the shire was appointed by the crown seems equally clear from the writings of King Alfred.  A conjecture of Spelman throws some light upon this affair.  He conceives that there were two aldermen with concurrent jurisdiction, one of whom was elected by the people, the other appointed by the king.  This is very probable, and very correspondent to the nature of the Saxon Constitution, which was a species of democracy poised and held together by a degree of monarchical power.  If the king had no officer to represent him in the county court, wherein all the ordinary business of the nation was then transacted, the state would have hardly differed from a pure democracy.  Besides, as the king had in every county large landed possessions, either in his demesne, or to reward and pay his officers, he would have been in a much worse condition than any of his subjects, if he had been destitute of a magistrate to take care of his rights and to do justice to his numerous vassals.  It appears, as well as we can judge in so obscure a matter, that the popular alderman was elected for a year only, and that the royal alderman held his place at the king’s pleasure.  This latter office, however, in process of time, was granted for life; and it grew afterwards to be hereditary in many shires.