insight into the Saxon method of making and executing laws.  First, the king called together his bishops, and such other persons as he thought proper.  This council, or Witenagemote, having made such laws as seemed convenient, they then swore to the observance of them.  The king sent a notification of these proceedings to each Burgmote, where the people of that court also swore to the observance of them, and confederated, by means of mutual strength and common charge, to prosecute delinquents against them.  Nor did there at that time seem to be any other method of enforcing new laws or old.  For as the very form of their government subsisted by a confederacy continually renewed, so, when a law was made, it was necessary for its execution to have again recourse to confederacy, which was the great, and I should almost say the only, principle of the Anglo-Saxon government.

What rights the king had in this assembly is a matter of equal uncertainty.[62] The laws generally run in his name, with the assent of his wise men, &c.  But considering the low estimation of royalty in those days, this may rather be considered as the voice of the executive magistrate, of the person who compiled the law and propounded it to the Witenagemote for their consent, than of a legislator dictating from his own proper authority.  For then, it seems, the law was digested by the king or his council for the assent of the general assembly.  That order is now reversed.  All these things are, I think, sufficient to show of what a visionary nature those systems are which would settle the ancient Constitution in the most remote times exactly in the same form in which we enjoy it at this day,—­not considering that such mighty changes in manners, during so many ages, always must produce a considerable change in laws, and in the forms as well as the powers of all governments.

We shall next consider the nature of the laws passed in these assemblies, and the judicious manner of proceeding in these several courts which we have described.

[Sidenote:  Saxon laws.]

The Anglo-Saxons trusted more to the strictness of their police, and to the simple manners of their people, for the preservation of peace and order, than to accuracy or exquisite digestion of their laws, or to the severity of the punishments which they inflicted.[63] The laws which remain to us of that people seem almost to regard two points only:  the suppressing of riots and affrays,—­and the regulation of the several ranks of men, in order to adjust the fines for delinquencies according to the dignity of the person offended, or to the quantity of the offence.  In all other respects their laws seem very imperfect.  They often speak in the style of counsel as well as that of command.  In the collection of laws attributed to Alfred we have the Decalogue transcribed, with no small part of the Levitical law; in the same code are inserted many of the Saxon institutions, though these two laws were in all respects as opposite as