No More Learning

A folk-king, say of West Kent, whose kingdom was so tiny that a day's
ride in any direction would bring him to another kingdom, could not
afford to give them landed estates; but a " Bretwalda" like Edwin or
Penda could, especially as he had the estates of his under-kings to draw
on. Inevitably then, if unconsciously, the clergy stood for fewer and
larger kingdoms and instilled into the minds of victorious kings ideas
which may be called "imperial,11 encouraging those who gained an
imperium both to legislate for and to tax their people after the


## p. 550 (#582) ############################################

550 The Introduction of the Hidage System
fashion of the Caesars, and at the same time teaching them the methods
by which permanent unity might be fostered.
Perhaps the most important political help they could give in this
direction was in working out orderly systems for the assessment and
collection of tributes. In the Roman Empire before its fall the
machinery of taxation had been highly elaborated, and it had been
found that the best way to raise a land tax was by assessing it on an
artificial partition of the territory to be taxed into a number of equally
assessed subdivisions. Each of these districts formed a unit of taxation
and each furnished an equal proportion of any tax, though at the same
time they might vary largely in area, according as their soil varied in
fertility and their population in density. On the Continent, systems of
this kind had never been entirely forgotten, at any rate not by the clergy;
and so it is not surprising to find that almost immediately after the advent
of the missionaries something of this kind, if only in a very rough and
ready form, begins to be traceable in England in the shape of the so-
called "hide," which is the term applied to equally taxed units of land.
Our main evidence for this, if scanty, is sufficient, and consists in
those passages in Bede's history, relating to events that took place in
the middle of the seventh century, in which he has occasion to compare
different districts one with another. As he wrote in Latin he does not
indeed use the vernacular term higid, later Latinised into hida, but a
circumlocution, speaking of the terra unius familiae; but this term is
always found in Englisb translations of his works translated by higid,
and so there is no doubt that the two were equivalent. In these passages
districts are set before us as reckoned at so many hides; and these hides
cannot be units of actual area, as the districts are always spoken of as
containing a round number of units, and further the number of units
given to them does not vary as their actual size. Most of the hidages
given by Bede also have the further peculiarity of being based on a unit
of 120, but this ceases to be remarkable, in an artificial assessment
scheme, when we remember that the English did not reckon by units
of 100,1000 and 10,000, but like all the Germans by the more practical,
because more readily divisible, units of 120, 1200, and 12,000, using
what is called a " long hundred" of six score rather than the "Roman
hundred" of five score. We are told, for instance, by Bede that the
Mercian homeland, in the valley of the Trent, was reckoned at 12,000
hides, Anglesey at 960, the Isle of Man at about 300, Thanet at
600 and the Isle of Wight at 1200. Similarly after the battle of
the Winwaed, Oswy makes a thank-offering and devotes 120 hides to
the Church, and this appears to have been made up of a dozen scattered
estates, each reckoned at 10 hides. This evidence is further backed up
by the document already alluded to, the so-called Tribal Hidage which
sets before us many more districts and assigns to each a round number
of hides. For this list, when analysed, is found, if allowance be made


## p. 551 (#583) ############################################

655-658] Temporary Triumph of Osivy 551
for a slight corruption of the text, to be built up of groups of districts,
each group being assessed at a multiple of 12,000 hides. Further, both
in Bede and in the Tribal Hidage and also in the "Song of Beowulf,"
an English epic that dates from the seventh century, we hear of other
districts assessed at 7000 hides; examples are Sussex, Essex, Wreocensaete
and Lindsey. At first this seems to clash with the 12,000 unit, but we get
from Bede an explanation when he tells how North Mercia was reckoned
at 7000 hides and South Mercia at 5000, thus shewing how a 12,000
hide unit might be divided into approximately, but not exactly, equal
moieties. All this evidence too clearly shews that these assessments
were arrived at, not from the bottom by beginning with the assessment
of villages, but from the top by assigning units of 12,000 hides to large
districts and petty kingdoms and subsequently apportioning the hides
to the various component sub-districts. The introduction of this
elaborate system, though it owed something to prior military organisa-
tion, must, one would infer, have been largely the work of the clergy,
as it could only have been planned by men of education with views as
to uniformity and some acquaintance with continental tradition. The
clergy, too, probably benefited by it quite as much as the kings; for
they too wanted to raise tolls and church-scots, and had everything to
gain by being able to distribute the burden on a definite plan.
It only remains to be said that the main features of this system,
when once introduced, remained in force throughout the Anglo-Saxon
period, and continued for four hundred years to be the basis on which
military and fiscal obligations were distributed, though the actual
assessments of particular districts were from time to time modified to
suit changed conditions. The unit of 1200 hides for example was still
an important feature of English organisation at the date of the Norman
Conquest. Only a few years before 1066, Worcestershire was reckoned
at 1200 hides, Northamptonshire at 3000, Wiltshire at 4800 and so on.
It is clear, however, that the hidage unit in many districts was in
time considerably enlarged. The Isle of Wight, for instance, was
reckoned at 200 units in 1066, as against 1200 in the time of Bede;
East Anglia at 6000 units as against the 30,000 hides given in the Tribal
Hidage, and we even know the approximate date when William the Con-
queror finally reduced the assessment of Northamptonshire to 1200 hides.
We must now return to the events of 655. The immediate result of
Penda's death was the temporary collapse of Mercia. Oswy found no
one to oppose him and quickly annexed all Mercia north of the Trent as
well as Deira and Lindsey. How far he overran Cheshire or penetrated
into the valley of the Severn we do not know; but Bede says that the
Mercians submitted to the partition of their province and that Oswy
took up the task of converting the country round Penda's capital,
appointing Diuma as first bishop of the Mercians. As for Peada,
Penda's heir and Oswy's son-in-law, he is represented as being content


## p. 552 (#584) ############################################

562 Wulfhere rebels against Oswy [ess
with adding the 5000 hides of South Mercia, that is to say Leicestershire,
Kesteven and Rutland, to his kingdom of Middle Anglia and as spending
his time in making plans for a monastery at Medeshamstede, a site on
the edge of the fens overlooking the country of the Gyrwe, well known
afterwards as Peterborough.
Meantime in Northumbria the two most important events were the
founding of the nunnery of Streaneshalch, afterwards renamed by the
Danes Whitby, and the promotion of Oswy's son Alchfrid to be under-
king of Deira. With affairs thus settled in the south Oswy next turned
his eyes northwards, and according to Bede subdued the greater part of
the Picts beyond the Forth. Bede represents him in fact as the greatest
of the Northumbrian kings with an imperium over all the southern
provinces of England as well as over Mercia and the Picts and Scots.
This may have been the case in 657; but if so, the quickly won
supremacy was short lived, and in the south did not survive beyond the
assassination of Peada in 658 and the accession of a more vigorous
prince to the headship of Mercia.
The new ruler was Wulfhere, Peada's younger brother and like him
a Christian. Elected by some Mercian notables, he came to the throne
determined to reconstitute and, if possible, to extend Penda's kingdom.
Bede describes the rebellion in a single sentence, merely stating that
Oswy's officials were expelled from Mercia; but really the revolt was an
event of first-rate importance. For Oswy's overlordship of the Midlands
came utterly to an end. So long as he lived, he continued to struggle to
regain it, but never with much success; and from this time onwards it
grows every year clearer that Northumbrians chance of dominating all
England has passed away.
In Wulfhere the Mercians found a leader even abler than Penda,
who steadily advanced his frontiers and at the same time thoroughly
Christianised his people. On the whole he shunned northern enterprises,
his aim being to get control of south-eastern England and even of
Sussex, and to hem in Wessex into the south-west. In the latter kingdom
considerable progress had followed on Coenwalch's return from exile.
Three events deserve mention. These are the assignment about 648 of
parts of Berkshire and Wiltshire, reckoned at 3000 hides, to Cuthred,
the prince who had helped to restore Coenwalch, a transaction which
shews that the assessment system had been applied south of the Thames,
the foundation of a second bishopric for Wessex at Winchester, and a
successful campaign carried on against the Britons of West Wales. The
latter opened with an attack on Somerset, and in 652 a battle occurred
near Bath at Bradford-on-Avon; but it was not till 658 that Coenwalch
was definitely successful, when a victory at Penn in the forest of Selwood
enabled the men of Wiltshire to overrun most of Dorset and to advance
the Wessex frontier in Somerset to the banks of the Parrett. Again we
only have very meagre accounts of an important event, but it is evident


## p. 553 (#585) ############################################

661-675] The Ascendancy of Mercia 553
that the settlement of so much new territory must have drawn heavily
on the West Saxon population and made them less able than heretofore
to withstand Mercian aggression in the Thames valley.
Here then was Wulfhere's opportunity to seize the Chiltern districts.
Nor did he lose it. In 661 he advanced out of Middle Anglia, and after
capturing Bensington and Dorchester, till then the chief centres of the
West Saxons, threw himself across the Thames and laid waste the
3000 hides, known as Ashdown, which Coenwalch had assigned to Cuthred.
It would seem that Cuthred was killed; at any rate the West Saxons
were completely beaten, and the " Chilternsaete" or dwellers in Oxford-
shire and Buckinghamshire, had to accept Wulfhere as their overlord.
Their district, reckoned in the Tribal Hidage at 4000 hides, from this
time forward may be regarded as Mercian, while the Thames becomes
the northern frontier of Wessex and Winchester the chief seat of the
West Saxon kings.
A further result of this campaign was seen in the submission of
Essex, at this time ruled by a double line of kings, and perhaps divided
into two provinces, Essex proper reckoned at 7000 hides and Hendrica
to the west of it reckoned at 3500. This was a very substantial gain:
for it gave Wulfhere London, even at that day the most important
port in England. As might be expected, the Thames did not long
set a limit to Wulfhere's ambitions. Using London as a base, he
next overran Suthrige, the modern Surrey, and shortly afterwards
Sussex. In Surrey after this we hear of Mercian aldermen; but
Sussex retained its kings, as Wulfhere found them useful as a counter-
poise to the kings at Winchester. Finally we find Wulfhere attacking
the Jutes along the valley of the Meon in south-east Hampshire and
the Isle of Wight. This brought his arms almost up to Winchester.
There is no record however that he attacked the West Saxon capital,
but only that he detached the "Meonwaras" and the men of Wight
from Wessex and annexed their districts to Sussex. The dates of these
events are not exactly known, but clearly they constituted Mercia a
power as great as any hitherto established in England. If the title
"Bretwalda" means wide ruler, Wulfhere clearly deserves it as much as
Oswald or Oswy, and perhaps more so; for he maintained his supremacy
for fourteen years (661-675) and was also quite as zealous as they were
to forward the new religion. Examples of his zeal are numerous, as for
instance the suppression of heathen temples in Essex in 665, the final
foundation of Medeshamstede, and the baptism of Aethelwalch king of
Sussex, Wulfhere himself standing as sponsor; or again the encourage-
ment which he gave to his brother Merewald to found a religious centre
for the Hecanas or West Angles which led to the establishment of
monasteries at Leominster in Herefordshire and Wenlock in Shropshire.
While Wulfhere was establishing the ascendancy of Mercia an internal
struggle of the greatest importance had arisen in Northumbria between


## p. 554 (#586) ############################################

554 Wilfrid and the Synod of Whitby [664
those who looked for Christian guidance to Iona and those who looked
to Rome. Though the work of evangelising the country had been
entirely carried on by the Scots, at first under Aidan of Lindisfame, and
after his death under Finan, there were none the less many clerics in the
land who, having travelled abroad, were not content to see the Church
cut off from continental sympathy by the peculiarities of the Irish system
and the claim of Iona to independence. The leader of this movement
was Wilfrid, a young Deiran of noble birth, who after studying at
Lindisfame had journeyed to Rome and finished his education at Lyons.
Returning to England in 658, he had become abbot of Stamford in
Kesteven, but had retired to Deira when Wulfhere revolted. There
from the outset he steadily advocated union with Rome, and winning
King Alchfrid's sympathy got himself about 661 appointed abbot of
Ripon, a newly founded monastery, in place of Eata, a Lindisfame
monk, who maintained the Iona traditions, especially as to the date of
Easter. About the same time Finan died at Lindisfame, and Colman
was sent from Iona to succeed him. In Bernicia the Roman party had
another powerful advocate in the person of Oswy's queen, a Kentish
princess. She eagerly pushed Wilfrid's cause at court until at last Oswy
and his son determined that a synod should be held at Streaneshalch to
discuss the matter. This assembly, later known as the Synod of Whitby1,
met early in 664. It consisted of both clergy and laymen, the leaders
on either side being Wilfrid and Colman. The test question was as to
the proper day for observing Easter. The Scots kept the feast on one
day, the Roman churchmen on another. The arguments were lengthy,
but the final decision was in favour of Wilfrid; whereupon Colman with
the bulk of the Columban clergy decided to leave Lindisfame and return
to Iona. So ended the Irish-Scot mission which for twenty-nine years
had been the leading force in civilising northern and central England.
The victory of Wilfrid's party was of great importance in three ways.
Firstly it restored the unity of the English Church, bringing all its
branches under one leadership, and so made its influence in favour of
political unity stronger. Secondly it quickened the spread of civilisation
by placing the remoter English provinces under teachers who drew their
ideas from lands where the traditions of the Roman Empire were still
alive, and where an altogether larger life was lived than among the wilds
of the Scottish islands. Lastly it introduced into England a new
conception of what a bishop or abbot should be, superseding the homely
self-effacing northern missionaries, who despised landed wealth, by more
worldly prince-prelates who were by no means satisfied to be only
preachers but demanded noble churches and a stately ritual for their
flocks and extensive endowments for themselves with a leading share in
the direction of secular affairs. It was this aspect of the Burgundian
and Frankish Churches that had particularly appealed to Wilfrid, and
1 See p. 631.


## p. 555 (#587) ############################################

669-690] Theodore of Tarsus 555
he meant to bring the English Church into line with them, if he could.
The opportunity of making a beginning in his own person soon offered
itself, owing to the death of Tuda, the bishop who had been placed over
Lindisfarne after Column's withdrawal. To fill the vacancy the North-
umbrian princes not unnaturally turned to Wilfrid, and he was quite
willing to accept their offer but on the condition that the site of his see
should be transferred to York, partly to shew that he was more truly
the successor of Paulinus than of Aidan, and partly in imitation of the
urban Frankish bishoprics. He further stipulated that he must be
consecrated abroad, as he regarded the English bishops as irregularly
appointed. He accordingly went to Frankland, and the ceremony took
place with great magnificence at Compiegne in presence of twelve
Gallican bishops. After this Wilfrid is represented as moving about
with a prince's body-guard of one hundred and twenty retainers; but so
much state was hardly justified, for he found, on returning to England,
that Oswy had quarrelled with his son, that Alchfrid had been driven
from Deira and that as a result Oswy was determined not to have his
son's friend as bishop of the Northumbrians. Oswy in fact had already
appointed another man to Wilfrid's see, in the person of Ceadda, abbot
of Lastingham, later known as St Chad. The motive of so anti-Roman
a step is not quite clear, but its importance is obvious. It made Wilfrid
a bitter opponent of the Northumbrian house and drove him to look
towards Mercia. He still remained abbot of Ripon but in 667 we find
him performing episcopal functions in Mercia for Wulfhere.
The following year a yet more important step in binding England to
civilisation and Roman culture took place when Pope Vitalian helped
in filling up the archbishopric of Canterbury and selected for the post,
not an energetic Englishman like Wilfrid, but a scholar and bom
organiser, who was well acquainted at once with Rome and Italy, and
with the Greek world of the Byzantine Empire, then without question
the most civilised part of Christendom. This remarkable man, called
Theodore of Tarsus, from his birthplace in Cilicia, was already sixty-six
when he landed in England in 669, and men must have thought that age
alone would soon damp his zeal. If so, they were mistaken; for never
was an archbishop so strenuous in every sphere, whether as administrator,
legislator, counsellor or peacemaker, so that for twenty-one years he
kept himself foremost in every English movement, and by his ceaseless
activity made the English understand what could be gained from unifi-
cation and orderly government.
The work which Theodore set himself to do was the thorough organ-
isation of the English Churches upon a centralised system in subjection
to Canterbury. Since Augustine's day no archbishop had played any
real part outside Kent, and Canterbury had enjoyed only an honorary
precedence. Theodore on the contrary regarded all England as his
province, and at once set out to visit all its petty kings and make


## p. 556 (#588) ############################################

556 The subdivision of Dioceses. Death of Oswy [671-675
himself acquainted with their peoples and their needs. In each diocese
he required an acknowledgment of his authority; in York for example
he re-established Wilfrid; and everywhere he inculcated the need of
uniform machinery and ritual.
Condemning the merely missionary types of church organisa-
tion as insufficient, he early decided that there ought to be a
greater number of bishops and clergy, a greater number of dio-
ceses and churches, and a substantial landed endowment, if possible,
for each minister of the church, whether priest, monk or prelate, to free
them from the insecurity of dependence on lay charity. The central
feature of this programme was the subdivision of unwieldy dioceses and
the foundation of more mother churches, a somewhat hazardous adven-
ture, as the existing bishops were naturally jealous of any diminution
of their importance. The first step was to get the existing churches
into touch with each other, and make them acknowledge the importance
of uniformity and good discipline. For this purpose Theodore sum-
moned a synod of bishops to meet at Hertford in 673, a memorable
event; for though only four of his six suffragans attended, the meeting
may be regarded as the first attempt in England at a national, as distinct
from a tribal, assembly.
The chief work of the synod, as reported by Bede, was the adoption
of certain canons for the guidance of the bishops, and this was followed
up in 674 by the actual putting into force in East Anglia of the policy
of smaller sees, the bishopric founded by Felix being partitioned and two
new sees created, one at Dunwich for Suffolk and the other at Elmham
for Norfolk.
A good beginning was thus made without opposition; but in his
further progress Theodore soon found himself entangled in the political
rivalries of Mercia and Northumbria and in quarrels connected with
Wilfrid. Theodore had reconciled Oswy and Wilfrid, but in 671 Oswy
died and Northumbria passed to his son Ecgfrith,an ill-fated prince, who
quickly quarrelled with Wilfrid and about 675 reopened the feud with
Mercia by again seizing Lindsey. Both events were made use of by
Theodore, for they furnished him with opportunities for intervening.
To subdivide the see of York had been quite impracticable so long as
Wilfrid had political support; but now Ecgfrith himself came forward
and offered to ignore Wilfrid and further the archbishop's reforms.
Theodore at once announced that though he was willing to let Wilfrid
continue bishop of a reduced see of York, he wished for four moderate-
sized bishoprics in Ecgfrith's dominions, proposing as their seats, in
Bernicia Lindisfarne and Hexham, in Deira York, and in Lindsev
Sidnacaester. Wilfrid obstinately resisted this proposal, declaring that
Theodore had no power to divide his see and that he would appeal
to Rome if any division was forced upon him. Theodore treated the
threat as contumacious, declared Wilfrid deposed, and appointed the


## p. 557 (#589) ############################################

675-680] Death of Wulfhere. Aethelred of Mercia 557
new bishops. Wilfrid replied by sailing for Frisia. In 679 he reached
Rome and laid his case before Pope Agatho, being the first English
bishop to appeal against his metropolitan to the papal tribunal.
Ecgfrith's attack on Lindsey, delivered about 675, at first was success-
ful, for it coincided with the death of Wulfhere and the accession of
Aethelred, his younger brother, to the throne of Mercia. This prince
however soon proved himself even more capable than his brother. His
first exploit was to overrun Kent and burn Rochester, and by 679 he
was quite ready to attack Ecgfrith. No account exists of the campaign,
beyond the fact that Aethelred won a decisive victory on the banks of
the Trent and would have invaded Deira, had not Theodore suddenly
interposed as a mediator, and effected a peace by which Lindsey and
perhaps Southern Yorkshire once more passed to Mercia. This was a
blow to Northumbrian prestige of such a deadly nature that for the
next thirty-five years (679-714) no Northumbrian king dared to attack
Mercia, and it was quickly followed by the acceptance of Aethelred's
overlordship by Kent which gave him an even greater position than had
been enjoyed by Wulfhere.
The part played by Theodore in these developments reveals his far-
sightedness. It would have been natural if he had seen his interest in
preserving the independence of Kent. His policy was just the reverse.
He saw that Mercia was the strongest English kingdom, and well able to
help in a centralising movement, and so he threw his influence on to.
Aethelred's side. Hence arose a close connexion between Canterbury
and Tam worth, which was to last for over a century.
The first result of this alliance was the erection of three additional
Mercian dioceses, the first for the South Mercians and Middle Angles at
Leicester, the second for the Hwicce at Worcester, and the third for the
southern branch of the Wreocensaete, the Hecana or Magesaete, at
Hereford. Even so the mother see at Lichfield remained unwieldy, as it
extended over South Lancashire, Cheshire and Shropshire as well as over
the lands of the North Mercians in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and
Nottinghamshire. Mercia thus obtained five dioceses, for Dorchester was
also a Mercian see. The three new sees seem to have been created not
simultaneously, but clearly at dates not far off 680, a year made
memorable by a second great synod summoned by Theodore to meet
at Heathfield to signify the English Church's orthodoxy on the Mono-
thelete question.
Having achieved the reorganisation of northern and central England
Theodore might well congratulate himself. Wessex remained undealt
with, but he now had fourteen suffragans in place of seven and each had
a fairly manageable diocese. The problems which still faced him were
the provision of permanent endowments on a sufficient scale and of parish
priests and churches. As to the latter, time alone could solve the diffi-
culty and no complete parochial system came into existence for several


## p. 558 (#590) ############################################

658 Endowment of the Church. The Landbook [679
centuries. Parishes were only slowly evolved as the richer landowners
built churches for their estates and most villages had for a long time to
be content with the occasional visits of travelling priests. The most
that could be done at once was to provide little groups of clerics, living
a semi-collegiate life, in monastic cells scattered here and, there in each
diocese, and let these serve the neighbouring districts. Traces of this
system of petty monasteries can probably still be seen in such village
names as Kidderminster, Alderminster, Upminster, Southminster and so
on, a system very similar to that of the Welsh clas but one that
ultimately passed away as more churches were built.
With regard to permanent endowments nothing very definite can be
said, except that they largely increased under Theodore's auspices, and
that it appears to be in his time that the practice of conferring estates
on the churches by means of written grants first arose. Bede tells of
grants of land in some cases before 670 but of none of any large amount,
the largest being Oswy's gift of 120 hides for 12 monastic cells after the
battle of the Winwaed, while he definitely says that the Scottish prelates
actually refused land in many instances. Wilfrid however had intro-
duced the desire for magnificence, and Theodore encouraged it. More
and more we hear of larger gifts, as for instance a gift to Benedict
Biscop of 70 hides to found Wearmouth, and a gift to Wilfrid of 87 hides
to found Selsey, shortly followed by one of 300 hides in the Isle of
Wight. With more frequent gifts came also the need for better means
of recording them and rendering them irrevocable; and so arose the use
of written conveyances, "Landbooks1,as the Saxons called them. These
were clearly introduced by the clergy from abroad, being based on
Frankish models with formulas drawn from Roman precedents, but no
genuine examples can be produced for England before Theodore's time.
The earliest specimen in fact that has survived to the present day seems
to be a landbook, dated 679, preserved by the monks of Christ Church,
Canterbury, by which Lothaire, king of Kent, granted Westanae, that is
the western half of Thanet, later known as Monkton, to the abbot of
Reculver. Only two or three other examples claim to be of Theodore's
time, but few of these are above the suspicion of forgery, and it is clear
that it was only after his death that the use of such instruments gradually
grew into favour. Even in the case of so old a church as Rochester, its
landbooks only begin with a deed dated 735, and altogether there are
not more than forty genuine landbooks extant which bear dates earlier
than 750.
The later years of Theodore's activity were also a critical period for
Wilfrid. As we have seen, he reached Rome in 679, but he did not gain
much by his appeal, important as it was as a precedent. Pope Agatho,
it is true, issued bulls in his favour, but when he returned to England
he was accused of buying them and Ecgfrith put him in prison. Regaining
his freedom after nine months, he decided to become a missionary and


## p. 559 (#591) ############################################

681-702] Battle of Nechtansmere. Death of Theodore 559
betook himself to Aethelwalch of Sussex, whose people were still heathen.
Here he laboured with great success for five years (681-686), baptising
the chief men and founding a monastery at Selsey. In connexion with
this foundation Bede adds the interesting note that there were 250 male
and female slaves on the estates which Aethelwalch gave for its endow-
ment, and that Wilfrid gave them their freedom, a significant indication
at any rate that a considerable percentage of the English lower orders
were excluded from the ranks of the freemen in the seventh century.
Meanwhile a path was opening for Wilfrid's return to Northumbria.
On the one hand he became reconciled with Theodore, on the other the
Northumbrian king was dead. After his defeat by Mercia Ecgfrith had
turned his attention northwards and had been busy fighting the Picts
and Scots. In 681 he set up a bishopric at Abercorn on the Forth, to
minister to the lands he claimed to have subdued, and in 684 he sent a
fleet to attack Ireland. In 685 his raids were even pressed beyond the
Tay in pursuit of Bruide the Pictish king; but here he met with
disaster, being slain with many of his nobles at Nechtansmere near Forfar.
From this date onwards Northumbria distinctly loses its vitality and
gradually falls into a chronic state of civil war. Ecgfrith's successor was
Aldfrid, a prince who had spent much of his time in a monastery and
who was no fighter. He was willing to be reconciled to Wilfrid but
would not restore him to his old position. He only offered him the
reduced see of York, and the abbacy of Ripon. With this Wilfrid had
to be perforce content, but not whole-heartedly, and he was soon
engaged in a new quarrel with Aldfrid over a proposal to create a separate
bishopric at Ripon. This question was just becoming acute when
Archbishop Theodore died at the great age of eighty-eight in 690.
The absence of his moderating influence soon made itself felt and within
two years Wilfrid was again in exile, taking refuge with Aethelred who
gave him the monastery of Oundle in Middle Anglia and later made him
bishop of Leicester. The appointment of a new archbishop of Canterbury
in 692 in the person of Berctwald, the abbot of Reculver to whom
Lothaire had granted Westanae, did nothing to stop the feud, and
Wilfrid remained in Mercia for eleven years (691-702). The most
interesting notice we have of him at this epoch implies his attendance
in 695 at the translation of the body of St Aethelthryth, the virgin
foundress of Ely, formerly Ecgfrith's queen, who in her life had played
a considerable part in bringing about his original quarrel in North-
umbria.
In reviewing Theodore's achievements, it will be noticed that the
only important English kingdom not touched by his activity was
Wessex; but here also great changes took place in his later days.
These were brought about by the rise to power of Ceadwalla, a young
pagan princeling who is first heard of in 684 making an attack on
Aethelwalch of Sussex. For some time before this Wessex had been
CH. XVII.
'


## p. 560 (#592) ############################################

560 Wessex under Ceadwalla and Ine [685-710
ruled by a number of petty chieftains, no one branch of the house of
Cerdic being able to control the rest, a weakness perhaps due to the
loss of the Chilterns to Mercia and to the difficulty of assimilating the
recently acquired Keltic provinces of Dorset and Somerset. Ceadwalla
had been outlawed in these conflicts and seems to have been in the pay
of the Kentish princes when he attacked Aethelwalch. Having slain
the Sussex king, he next year turned against Centwine, the leading
claimant to the kingship in Wessex, drove him into a monastery and
got himself elected king. He followed up these successes by an attack
on the Jutes in the Isle of Wight and round Southampton Water—
districts which Bede describes as still ruled by their own king and still
heathen. Ceadwalla quickly conquered them, and even tried to ex-
terminate the Jutes and replace them by West Saxons. His savagery
had evidently not been forgotten fifty years later. It is clear, however,
that he himself was thinking of becoming a Christian; for as soon as he
had the island in his power, he handed over a quarter of it to Bishop
Wilfrid, and permitted the advent of Christian missionaries, thus
bringing about the fall of the last stronghold of paganism in England.
Having thus secured his position in Wessex, Ceadwalla again
attacked Sussex and overran it from end to end, and then pushed on
into Kent, designing to set up his brother Mul as an under-king over
part of that kingdom. For the moment the design succeeded, and it
may well be that, as a result, Surrey was detached from Kent. Mul,
however, was not favoured by fortune and shortly met a tragic death by
burning. Ceadwalla at once made reprisals; but in the midst of his
harryings he was seized with contrition for his deeds and determined to
become a Christian definitely, and to abandon his throne and go as a
pilgrim to seek baptism from the Pope. He accordingly left England
in 688 and, reaching Rome, was baptised by Pope Sergius. He was
still only thirty, but died almost immediately afterwards. No reign in
Anglo-Saxon history is more bloodthirsty than Ceadwalla's, but his
meteoric career had the merit of putting new vigour into the West
Saxons, who from this time onwards stand out as far more determined
opponents of Mercia than hitherto. Sussex, too, from this date tends
to become a vassal of Wessex rather than of Mercia, and so the first
move is made towards the distant goal of the ultimate supremacy of the
house of Cerdic in England. Ceadwalla was succeeded by Ine, a man of
considerable force, who ruled Wessex for thirty-eight years (688-726).
The greater part of his reign was devoted to extending his territories.
In the east he set up his kinsman Nunna as under-king of Sussex; in
the west he encroached year by year on West Wales.
Details are
lacking, but we may ascribe the conquest of West Somerset to the
middle of his reign, Geraint the British king of Damnonia being driven
from Taunton. In 710 a fight is mentioned in which Nunna also took
part, and, though no results are recorded, an advance into the valley of


## p. 561 (#593) ############################################

690-725] Kent under Wihtraed. Ine's Laws 561
the Exe may perhaps be presumed, as we find the West Saxons at
Crediton near Exeter early in the next reign. Ine's thoughts, however,
were not solely bent on war, and the Church found him an active patron
and eager to further the principles of Theodore. Among his friends
were many notable ecclesiastics, such as Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury,
the most learned classical scholar in England, Earconwald, bishop of
London, the founder of Chertsey Abbey in Surrey and so in some sort
Ine's bishop, and Headde, bishop of Winchester. With the approval
of men such as these, he pressed forward the endowment of the clergy
both by generous grants of land and by formally enacting that the dues
called "church-scots" should be compulsory and levied every Martinmas.
The extant landbooks, however, which the monks of Glastonbury and
Abingdon ascribed to him in later days, can hardly be regarded as
genuine.
As his frontiers advanced westwards, the question naturally arose,
"Ought the West Saxon see to be divided? " Nothing was done till
Headde died in 705. The ideas of Theodore were then taken up and
the overgrown diocese split into two. The seat of the new western
see, sometimes called Selwoodshire because it comprised Wessex west of
Selwood Forest, was fixed at Sherborne and Aldhelm of Malmesbury was
consecrated its first bishop, while the reduced see of Winchester was
given to Daniel. Some few years later the same principle was applied
to Sussex, and Daniel permitted a new bishopric for the South Saxons
to be set up at Selsey.
While Wessex was thus developing under Ine, Kent, though subject to
Mercia, was not inactive. In Theodore's later years the kingdom had been
divided between Lothaire and Eadric, joint rulers, who are remembered
for some amending laws supplementing Aethelberht's code. A period of
anarchy however followed on Ceadwalla's inroads in 685. This was
terminated by the accession of Wihtraed, a particularly devout prince
who ruled as Ine's contemporary from 690 to 725 and who is claimed
as the first English king to grant general charters of immunity to the
churches of his kingdom, thereby freeing their lands from secular and
royal dues. Whether Wihtraed's so-called "Privilege" is really a
genuine document will probably never be ascertained; but he also
issued a code of laws mainly directed to making the status of the
clergy clear and definite, which are markedly in favour of the Church.
The example set by Kent was not lost on Ine. Early in his reign
he also issued a collection of written laws. As we have them now, they
form an appendix to the dooms issued two hundred years later by
Alfred, and it is not quite clear how far they have been abbreviated
and subjected to revision. None the less they give most valuable
evidence for the seventh century, for they seem to present a contrast
to the Kentish dooms on many points, and also deal with a larger
number of topics. The most interesting sections are perhaps those
C. MED. H. VOI. II. CH. XVII. 96


## p. 562 (#594) ############################################

562 Death of Wilfrid. Ine abdicates [702-726
dealing with the conquered Welsh in Somerset and Dorset. Though it
is usual to speak of these laws as codes, it must always be remembered
that they are in reality no more than brief amending clauses, dealing
only with certain sides of the law, more particularly with the penalties
for important crimes, and with the status of the clergy. Family law
and the law of property are only scantily touched on, and public institu-
tions, even if alluded to, are never explained, but taken for granted.
Moreover, the codes when all put together are extremely brief. Aethel-
berht's laws, for example, are confined to ninety clauses, and Wihtraed's
to twenty-eight, while no laws of this date at all have come down to us
from Mercia or Northumbria. It is clear then that any picture of
society, which can be deduced from them, must be most imperfect, and
that much is left to inference. They have, however, a superiority over
similar codes produced by the conquering Germans on the Continent in
that they are written in English and so give the native terms for the
things of which they speak, whereas the continental codes being in
Latin only give approximate equivalents which are often merely mysti-
fying and misleading.
We must now turn back to the affairs of the North. Wilfrid, while
in Mercia, had never abandoned his claim to be bishop of undivided
Northumbria. In 702 a fresh attempt was made to deal with it, a
synod being held at Austerfield on the Idle under the presidency of
Archbishop Berctwald. As before, neither Wilfrid nor Aldfrid would
give way; the upshot was that, in spite of his age, Wilfrid once more
set out for Rome to lay his cause in person before the Pope. In 704,
while he was still abroad, Aethelred retired from the throne of Mercia
to become a monk at Bardney, and was succeeded by his nephew
Coenred; and when Wilfrid returned in 705 with fresh papal letters,
he found Aldfrid on his death-bed. Before a synod could meet, the
crown of Northumbria passed to a child. This seemed to facilitate
a compromise; Wilfrid, however, did not attain his object. He never
regained even York and had to be content with the see of Hexham.
He lived four years longer and died at Oundle in 709. His death
brings to an end the interesting period of Northumbrian history. The
northern kingdom from this time onwards is of little account, and its
story one long record of faction and decay. The only bright spots in its
annals are Bede's literary career at Jarrow and the development of the
schools of York, and the only event of permanent importance the
conversion of the bishopric of York into an archbishopric. This took
place in 735, the year that Bede died, the first archbishop of York
being Ecgbert, the prelate who founded the schools and who for thirty-
two years devoted himself to their development.
For the whole of the eighth century the Mercian State clearly holds
the headship of England. Wessex at first caused some trouble under
Ine, and we hear of a fight in 715 at a place usually identified with


## p. 563 (#595) ############################################

716-757] Aethelbald of Mercia 563
Wanborough near Swindon. But Ine was entirely occupied with the
internal affairs of Wessex and Sussex for the last ten years of his reign,
and in 726 he followed the example of Ceadwalla and abdicated, being
filled with a desire to see Rome and die in the neighbourhood of the
popes. Coenred and Ceolred, who occupied the Mercian throne after
Aethelred, may perhaps have feared Ine, but all doubt, as to which
state was supreme, disappeared with the accession of Aethelbald, who
ruled from Tamworth for forty-one years (716-757), only to be suc-
ceeded by the still more famous Offa, who ruled for thirty-nine (757-
796). These long reigns are not filled with struggles for supremacy
like those of the seventh century, and lend themselves to briefer
treatment.
Aethelbald's reign is roughly contemporaneous with the career of
Charles Martel, while Offa's extends over a part of the reign of
Charlemagne, with which prince he had friendly relations. Aethelbald
calls himself in his landbooks "King of the Mercians and South Angles11;
Offa is addressed by the popes as "King of the English" without qualifi-
cation. This difference of style pretty well sums up the progress made
in the period, so that at OftVs death it must have seemed to contempo-
raries that the domination of all England by Mercia was merely a question
of time. As it was, Kent and East Anglia had already been practically
absorbed. In spite of this development these reigns are usually held to
be "an age of little men, of decaying faith and of slumberous inactivity";
but this is hardly the whole truth and arises from the fact that we no
longer have Bede's lively narrative to help us to fill out our picture, our
materials being cut down to the bald statements of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle supplemented by a few lives of saints and some two hundred
landbooks, more than half of which are under suspicion of being spurious.
The Chronicle, too, being chiefly concerned with Wessex, gives a quite
inadequate impression of the aims and activities of the leading Mercians.
Aethelbald's reign was clearly favourable to the growth of church
endowments. The earliest Rochester and several of the earlier Worcester
landbooks are ascribed to him. More important, however, than his actual
grants of land, if we can trust it, is his general decree issued in 749, by
which he conceded to all the minsters of his kingdom freedom from all
burdens (a publicis vectigalibus et ab omnibus oneribus) excepting only
the duties of repairing bridges and maintaining fortresses. Here we
have an important step towards the encouragement of feudalism; for
clearly this concession does not mean that the peasantry on ecclesiastical
lands are to be free from vectigal, but that what has hitherto been paid
to the king will go for the future into the treasuries of the churches.
Thus, as has been well said, the Church got "a grip on those who dwelt
on the land. 11 It should be noticed too that in the grants of this period
little stress is laid upon any consent by the Mercian magnates as a
necessary condition required to make the grants valid. The king declares
ch. xvii. 36—2


## p. 564 (#596) ############################################

564 Reign of Offa [757-796
himself to be granting his own lands and his own rights. The magnates
appear as a rule only in the attesting clauses as adstipulatores or witnesses.
While Aethelbald was active in supporting the Church, there is also
evidence that under him the clergy, led by Archbishop Cuthbert, made
strenuous efforts to improve themselves, a synod being held in 747 at
Clovesho in which thirty canons were drawn up for the reform of
ecclesiastical discipline. These canons no doubt are good evidence that
there were abuses needing reform and so bear out to a certain extent the
gloomy picture of ecclesiastical decay which Bede has put on record as
characteristic of Northumbria in his time. It would, however, be unfair
to assume that the decay was as bad in flourishing Mercia as in declining
Northumbria; and the acts of this synod point rather to progress and
activity. As a warrior Aethelbald does not come much before us.
Early in his reign he raided Somerset as far as Somerton on the
Parrett, and towards the end of it the West Saxons, led by Cuthred,
retaliated by a raid into Oxfordshire as far as Burford, an achievement
which the Wessex chronicle makes much of. There seems no real
evidence however that this reverse had any permanent effect on the
Mercian supremacy. It may have rendered Wessex somewhat more
independent, and more hopeful of regaining the Chilterns, but when
Offa succeeded to the Mercian throne in 757 there was clearly no
question as to his ascendancy in England.
Offa's reign marks the culmination of the power of Mercia. All
accounts admit that he was the most powerful of the Mercian kings
and easily supreme in England. Among facts that illustrate this are
the disappearance of the sub-kings who had hitherto maintained them-
selves in Essex and in the province of the Hwicce, and the appearance of
landbooks in which Offa disposes of estates in Sussex, the kings of Kent
and Wessex figuring as consenting vassals among the witnesses. The
Kentish men rose against him in 774 at Otford and the men of Wessex
in 777 at Bensington; but in both cases only to meet with crushing
defeats, and for the rest of his reign he had no further troubles south of
the Thames. In 778 he devastated all South Wales and again in 784,
and it must be about this period that he ordered the great earthwork to
be erected along his western frontier which later ages called Offa's Dyke.
This work is still traceable between the Dee and the Wye, and marks,
not so much an advance of the Mercians, as a final delimitation of their
territory, all beyond it being definitely left subject to Welsh law and
custom, even if occupied by the English. Finally, in 793 Offa put the
king of the East Angles to death, and annexed his kingdom. On the
Continent Offa had considerable renown and Charlemagne even negotiated
with him for the hand of one of his daughters for his eldest son. In
internal affairs he was also active. For example, he reformed the Anglo-
Saxon coinage, introducing a new type of silver penny in imitation of
Charles the Great's denarius, a type which lasted almost unchanged down


## p. 565 (#597) ############################################

796] The Archbishopric of Lichfield. Death of Offa 565
to late Plantagenet times, and also a gold coin, called the mancus, copied
from the dinars used by the Moors in Spain. He also issued a code of
Mercian laws; these are unfortunately lost, but they were utilised by
Alfred a century later as a source for his own code. In church matters
he is remembered as the founder of St Alban's Abbey (also perhaps of
Westminster) and as a liberal benefactor to Canterbury and Worcester,
but more especially for his determination to make the Mercian dioceses
independent of Canterbury. For this purpose he applied to the Pope to
convert the bishopric of Lichfield into an archbishopric. The Archbishop
of Canterbury naturally resisted the design, but Hadrian I sent legates
to England in 786 to examine the matter, and a synod was held at
Chelsea which settled that Higbert of Lichfield should be put in charge
of the seven dioceses of Mercia and East Anglia and receive a pallium.
In return for this concession Offa promised to give the Pope an annual
gift of money, and so inaugurated the tribute known to after ages as
Peter's Pence. Offa died in 796, completely master of his realm, but
his good fortune did not descend to his only son, a delicate youth called
Ecgfrith. This prince only survived his father 141 days, and on his
death the crown passed over to his remote kinsman Coenwulf, who once
more had to struggle with Kent and who ultimately abandoned Offa's
scheme of a separate archbishopric for Mercia in return for the support of
the archbishop of Canterbury against the rebels. This concession was
undoubtedly a good thing for England, but it marks the beginning of
the fall of Mercia.
Before leaving the Mercian period it is natural to ask a few questions
as to the social and political organisation of the English in the days of
Theodore and up to the close of the eighth century. Can a satisfactory
short statement be made about these matters, or must it be admitted
that our sources are so scanty and so full of gaps that it is impossible to
obtain any definite light on them? The chief difficulty arises from the
absence of contemporary laws for either Northumbria, Mercia or East
Anglia. Except for a few Mercian landbooks, for Bede's incidental
remarks and for the general picture of society presented in lives of such
saints as Wilfrid, or in heroic poetry like the Song of Beowulf, ap-
parently composed in Mercia about a. d. 700, we have no contemporary
evidence illuminating English institutions north of the Thames. The
Kentish laws and those of Ine furnish a fair amount of material for the
southern provinces, but can this evidence be assumed to apply to the
whole country, especially when we find that there were marked differences
between Kent and Wessex? As a rule this question has been answered
in the affirmative, and it has been assumed that the main customs of
Wessex were also in force in the midlands and the north, while the gaps
in the southern evidence have been filled by having recourse to parallel
continental practice or to English customs of a later day. It must be
admitted that no very sure generalisations can be attained by these


## p. 566 (#598) ############################################

666 Social Organisation of the English
methods, and the resulting picture is bound to be marred by mis-
conceptions. However, if an outline is to be attempted at all, no other
methods are available.
As regards the social organisation the most striking feature revealed
by the laws is the great complexity of the class divisions. Society in a
petty English kingdom about a. d. 700 did not consist in the main of
men on an equal footing with one another, but took the form of an
elaborately graded social ladder, each grade above the slaves being
distinguished, as in all primitive societies, by its special "wergeld" or
money price. In Kent there were four main divisions, theows, laets,
ceorls and eorlcund-men, corresponding to the servi liberti ingenui and
nobiles spoken of by Tacitus when describing the Germans of the first
century; but these main classes had many subdivisions, as for instance
four grades of bondmen, three of laets and four of eorlcund-men, while in
addition there was the further distinction between the godcund and the
woruMcund, the clergy and the laity, the former having also their own
grades. In Wessex there were also four main divisions of the laity but
the classification was clearly not the same as in Kent. The four main
classes were the theows, the Welshmen, the ceorls and the gesithcund-men.
Here too there were subdivisions, the laws distinguishing several categories
of Welshmen, two of ceorls (the twihynde and the sixhynde classes) and
two of gesithcund-men. In both kingdoms above the eorlcund and
gesithcund classes, or perhaps forming their highest subdivisions, were
the aethelings. This grade was composed of the members of the princely
kindreds from whom the kings were chosen. These men furnished the
bulk of the provincial officials, and from time to time they are seen
deposing the kings and breaking up the kingdoms among themselves,
each aetheling claiming for himself a "shire," that is to say his "share,'"
as a petty principality. It is these aethelings, men like Ceadwalla before
he seized the crown, who should be regarded as the "nobles'" in such
petty states as Essex, Sussex, Kent or even Wessex and not the mass of
the eorlcund or gesithcund classes, who were clearly not so much nobles
as the equivalent of the knights and squires of later ages. The ordinary
gesithcund-man, as the name implies, was suited by birth and training to
be the companion or "comes" of the aetheling. Like the latter, he
spent most of his time in war and hunting; but to regard both the
leader of a "comitatus" and his "comites" as "nobles" is only
confusing.
The upper grades, the "dearly-born" men as they were termed
because of their higher " wergelds," were often spoken of in the mass as
eorls, an expression best translated as the "warriors,'" whereas all the
lower free classes were in a general sense ceorls or agriculturists. The
most remarkable fact revealed by the laws about the ceorls, in the
stricter sense of the term, was the inferior status held by the Wessex
ceorls as compared with the Kentish ceorls. It is somewhat difficult to


## p. 567 (#599) ############################################

The Wergelds in Kent and Wessex
567
compare their respective " wergelds," for the monetary systems of Kent
and Wessex differed; but, whatever the obscurities, it seems to be now
agreed that whereas the wergelds of the eorlcund and gesithcund classes
were approximately of equal value, the value of the Wessex ceorl was
far below that of the Kentish ceorl, and little higher than the value of
the lowest class of Kentish laet. The best way to shew this is to convert
the money values given by the laws into terms of livestock, the medium
in which the fines were mostly paid. In the case of Wessex this is not
a difficult problem. The laws state the amount of the wergeld in
Wessex "shillings," and there are passages in Ine's code and also in the
later West Saxon laws which indicate that this "shilling" was the
equivalent of a "sheep. " It seems further that the English reckoned
four sheep as the equivalent of one cow. When therefore the laws state
that the twihynde ceorVs wergeld was 200 shillings, we can interpret the
meaning to be that the manslaughter of a twihynde ceorl could be
atoned for by paying his maegth either 200 sheep or 50 cows. In the
Kentish laws, on the other hand, we find that the ceorVs wergeld was
100 Kentish shillings; but this shilling was at least four times as
valuable as the Wessex shilling; many passages in Aethelberhfs code
shewing that it contained 20 pence, whereas the Wessex shilling most
probably contained five. The Kentish shilling was therefore the equiva-
lent, not of a "sheep," but of a " cow "; and accordingly the killing of
a Kentish ceorl could only be atoned for with 100 cows, or twice the
Wessex penalty. The subjoined table, giving the values (manwyrth) of
the chief grades in cows, shews, better than any description, the differences
between Kentish and West Saxon society.
Kent (1 shilling=20d. = 1 cow),
aetheling 1500 sh. —1500 cows
eorlcund 300 sh. = 300 cows
ceorl 100 sh. = 100 cows
laet, 1st grade 80 sh. = 80 cows
laet, 2nd grade 00 sh. = 60 cows
laet, 3rd grade 40 sh. = 40 cows
Welshmen (none mentioned)
Wessex (1 shillings5d. = 1 sheep).
aetheling
gesithcund or twelf-
hyndeman
sixhynde ceorl
Welshman holding
5 hides
twihynde ceorl
Welshman holding
1 hide
do. holding \ hide
do. without land
(not given)
1200 sh. = 300 cows
600 sh. = 150 cows
do. ■= do.
200 sh. = 50 cows
120 sh. =
80 sh. =
60sh. =
30 cows
20 cows
15 cows
We may next ask, in what relation did the classes stand to each
oth^r? It is clear that among men of Teutonic descent the distinctions
of rank were for the most part hereditary distinctions. A man was
borni a ceorl or born a laet, whereas the gradations recognised among the
Welshmen depended on property. It was possible however for an
English ceorl to acquire a higher rank by accumulating landed property.
It is adso clear that the lower grades were the dependents or " men" of
/


## p. 568 (#600) ############################################

568 The Landlords and the Peasantry
the upper grades. Everywhere in the laws we meet with the hlqfords
or lords who were entitled to fines called manbots if their men were
injured, and these lords were lords over freemen as well as over slaves.
The peasantry too are put before us as gqfblgeldas or tributarii, that is to
say rent-payers, and it is clear that they not only paid tribute to the
king, but had also to work for their lords, as well as pay them dues
(gqfol) (Ine, 67). The amount of the work is not recorded, but we may
be sure that the warriors and the churches got their lands tilled for
them by their men, and for the most part by freemen. A gesUhcund-
man with an estate assessed at 5 hides could not till his land by himself,
still less could those with estates assessed at 10 or 20 hides. They
worked them by placing lesser freemen upon them, who paid them rents in
kind, or services, or both.
Section 70 of Ine's Laws gives an indication of what might be
exacted in this way, giving the year's revenue to be derived from
a 10 hide estate as 10 vats of honey, 300 loaves, 12 ambers of Welsh
ale, 30 ambers of clear ale, 10 sheep, 10 geese, 20 hens, 10 cheeses,
an amber of butter, 5 salmon, 20 weighs of hay and 100 eels. We
must understand this as the combined render collected by a land agent
from many small tenants, some holding no more than a "gyrde" or
"yard" of land, that is land assessed at a quarter of a hide, the bulk of
them being probably in the position of the laet class in Kent. This
class, who correspond to the lazzi of the Continent, were only as it were
half-free; that is to say, they were freemen, but freemen depressed by
having alien or servile blood in their ancestry. This affected their status
in two ways. Firstly they lacked the protection given by a full maegth
of free relatives. A freedman, newly freed, as a rule could have had no
free relatives, and his descendants only gradually acquired them. At
least four generations, or a century, had to pass away before the handi-
cap ceased to be felt, and in the interval the support furnished by a
maegth had to be obtained instead from the hlqford to whose family the
laet owed his freedom. Secondly, such land as a laet, or Welshman, held
had not been acquired by conquest at the original settlement, but also
came from the hlqford, and as a consequence was not held freely, but on
conditions prescribed by the lord. No doubt it was regarded as heritable,
but subject to the goodwill of the lord. In some cases, too, the lord
provided a botl, or house, for his man as well as the land. These
features, it is true, are only mentioned in the Wessex laws, and not in
those of Kent; but the low wergeld of the Wessex ceorls seems easiest
explained, if we regard them as originally descended from a class of laets,
and subsequently raised in status and dignified by a nobler name in
consequence of the victorious wars, which had superimposed them on
the top of the alien Welsh peasantry among whom they were settled.
An exactly parallel change occurred again in England in the ninth
century, when the Norsemen conquered eastern England. They too had
-v


## p. 569 (#601) ############################################

Political Organisation. The Witan 569
their laet class, called leysings, and when these leysings settled among
the English they were at once raised in status and made to rank as ceorls1.
The political organisation of the petty English states of Theodore's
day, or even when Offa was at his zenith, is as difficult to elucidate as
the social organisation. Much has to be inferred from later evidence,
and many generalisations, which are possibly true for the tenth century,
seem to lack authority when applied, as they have been, to the eighth.
It is of course clear that all the states had kings, some of them even a
dual kingship as in Kent and Essex, and we may also believe that they
all possessed some kind of national assembly, known as the witenagemot
or " meeting of the wise. " But when we inquire what part the witam
played, and how they were composed, little can be asserted with con-
fidence. The lists of witnesses to the landbooks attributed to Aethelbald
and Offa are usually supposed to be evidence for the personnel of the
Mercian witan before a. d. 800; but these records are very difficult
material to deal with, while still less confidence can be placed in the
landbooks of Wessex or Sussex. What the landbooks shew, if genuine,
is that the Mercian witan was a very aristocratic and restricted body,
comprising the king and the bishops, a few abbots and about a dozen
other magnates who are described either as "princes" or "dukes. "
Even when joined to the Kentish witan, the assembly rarely numbered
thirty; and except on these occasions there is hardly any evidence of lesser
personages than dukes attending. In some Wessex documents the dukes
are described as "praefects,'" and seem to have been seven in number. The
Kentish magnates are occasionally described as "comites. " The Mercian
dukes were clearly aethelings set over the various provinces which made
up the kingdom, such as Lindsey or Wreocensaete, and many of them
were near kinsmen of the king. It is not known whether the kings were
expected to summon their witans to confer with them regularly, nor can
we say how far the kings were really guided by them. They clearly
were consulted on the rare occasions when new laws were framed, but it
does not follow from this that a strong king submitted to their advice
in matters of ordinary administration. Certainly in making grants of
land the kings claimed to be dealing with their own property at their
own will. In the case of a disputed succession, however, the witan
played an important part, determining which of the royal kindred should
be acknowledged, when the rivals were not prepared to appeal to arms.
The king's power must really have depended chiefly on his wealth, and on
his prestige as a warrior. If he could keep together and endow an effective
retinue and at the same time maintain friendly relations with the bishops,
he was probably not much hampered by any organised political system.