No More Learning

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.
If we turn from the central to the provincial institutions, the same
want of evidence prevails. We can only dimly imagine what the districts
were which had separate dukes; but it is usual to assume that the
1 Alfred and Guthrum Treaty, a. d. 886.


## p. 570 (#602) ############################################

670 The Dukes and the Local Assemblies
indications as to the local government of Wessex, which can be gleaned
from Ine's laws, may be also applied to Mercia. These laws shew that
Wessex was divided into shires, and that each shire had an " alderman"
at its head. These officers, the praefecti of the Wessex landbooks, were
presumably the equivalent of the Mercian dukes. Their duties were to
preside in the local assemblies or shiremoots, to maintain order and
promote justice, and to lead the forces of their shire in war. Their
power, like that of the kings, was dependent on their wealth and on
their prestige as military leaders. In theory no doubt they were the king's
agents and removable at the king's will, but in practice the aldermanries
were not often interfered with, and they tended to become hereditary.
The chief use of the shiremoot was as a court of justice; it appears
to have met twice a year and was attended by the gesithcund-men
and the more important ceorls. For small men attendance must
have been a burden, for the richer an opportunity for display and for
social intercourse. The actual administration of justice was in the
hands of those who attended. It was for them to declare the law, and
fix what manner of proof should be furnished by the litigants. It was
they, rather than the presiding alderman, who must be regarded as the
judges. In the language of the time they were the "doomsmen," and
they dealt with all cases both criminal and civil. It is obvious that a
court of this kind, sitting at long intervals, and not particularly easy of
access for the bulk of the inhabitants of a shire, could not have been the
only court; for ordinary cases the shires must have been further sub-
divided, and the courts of these smaller districts must have sat more
frequently. Such courts are found in later times sitting once a month,
the districts appropriate to them being called " hundreds," and consisting
of groups of villages varying in number from two or three to as many
as twenty. There is every reason to suppose that these "hundred"
divisions existed in England from the first; they are in fact a common
feature of all primitive races, but neither the Kentish nor the West
Saxon laws have anything to say about them. Traces of them are
perhaps seen in the smaller divisions recorded in the Tribal Hidage.
We may assume however that only the more important men laid
their suits before the shire courts, and that monthly courts of some
kind were the really popular courts attended by the mass of the people,
the same methods of procedure being used in them as in the higher
courts. There is reason to suspect however that, already in Offa's age,
some of these smaller courts were no longer under the direct supervision
of the alderman or officials appointed by him. Already the greater
churches were aiming at special immunities for their estates, and the
landbooks bear witness to the readiness of the kings to purchase safety
for their souls by freeing the clerical and monastic owners from secular
control. In this way the Church took over functions that should have
belonged to the king or the alderman, with the result that in many
subdistricts the bishops and the abbots rather than any secular authority


## p. 571 (#603) ############################################

The Tendencies towards Feudalism 571
were practically the controlling officials. For the peasantry in a rude
age this may have been a gain, but the outcome was a fusion of the
ruler and the landowner which greatly assisted the growth of a system
approaching feudalism.
The difficult questions connected with the development of feudal
tendencies in the English kingdoms cannot be adequately discussed
here for want of space. Not only is the whole subject very complicated,
but for a long time past it has formed a topic for controversy, and
though some light has been shed upon the darkness, many points
still remain obscure. Three problems have been much debated. First,
what proportion of the peasantry were free landowners? Secondly, by
what stages did the landlord class acquire the right to exact rents and
services from their lesser neighbours? and thirdly, how did it come
about that military and judicial powers properly belonging to the kings
and dukes also fell into the hands of the landowners?
Thirty years ago it used to be supposed, following the current
German views as to Teutonic society, that at the outset the bulk of
the English peasantry were virtually free landowners, and the problem,
which perplexed historians, was how best to account for the rapid decline
of their freedom and the rise of landlordism. These views, however, were
directly challenged in 1883 by Frederic Seebohm in his treatise on the
"English Village Community. " This book not only drew a vivid picture
of the methods of husbandry employed in Anglo-Saxon times, shewing
how tillage was carried on by joint ploughing and how the usual peasant
holding or "yardland" was formed of a number of acre and half-acre strips
scattered up and down the arable lands of the village and lying inter-
mixed with those of other holdings, but also attempted to trace back
all the chief features of medieval serfdom into the earliest periods. In
the main he contended, not so much that the English took over a servile
system of agriculture ready made from the Romanised Britons, but that
dependent tenure and the power of the lord were innate features of all
tribal societies, and that consequently the English tribes or " maegths,"
no less than the tribes of Keltic Wales or Ireland, were at no period
within our ken without a considerable percentage of dependent workers.
Hence much of the later manorial system and many feudal features
should be regarded as present in their villages from their first settlement
in England. These views did not command complete assent and
were partly challenged by Maitland and other writers, who pointed out
many gaps in the chain of argument; but none the less the evidence,
marshalled by Seebohm in this book and in two later studies on the
characteristics of tribal custom in Northern Europe, entirely revolutionised
the whole current of the discussion, so that it is no longer supposed that
the marked equality of the yardlands in the English villages can be
traced back to a primitive stage of freedom and equality. On the
contrary, it is recognised that such equality is much more likely to have


## p. 572 (#604) ############################################

572 The various kinds of English Village
been produced and maintained by pressure from above exercised by lords
who for their own purposes prevented inequalities arising, such as would
naturally spring up within a few years in any free society by the mere
application of the Teutonic rule of partible succession among children.
Further discussion has also shewn that, in reality, there were several
different types of village community in early England. To begin with,
the terms used in the earliest laws for a village vary. 'In the Kentish
laws we find tun, ham and wic, in the West Saxon weorthig and hiwisc.
The former terms survive as English words in the forms "town,'" "hamlet'"
and " wick," the latter only in somewhat disguised shapes in suffixes of
place-names—for example in Tamworth, Holsworthy, Leintwardine and
Hardenhuish. Other terms, not used in the early laws but common
enough as suffixes, are stede, hamstede, hamtun and burh, the latter being
the parent of both "borough" and "bury. " Whether differences of
type are implied by this wealth of terms is not clear. It has indeed
been argued that the suffix " ham " betokens an earlier settlement than
the suffix "tun"; but this seems doubtful. As yet no comprehensive
study of English place-names has been attempted. The evidence for
the divergence of types is really found elsewhere, by studying the plan
and structure of the villages as recorded in the maps of the Ordnance
Survey. Two divergent types stand out clearly. On the one hand we
see villages in which all the homesteads lie clustered together in a single
street; these have been termed by Maitland "nucleated villages"; on
the other, villages in which the homesteads lie scattered here and there
over the village territory. The former is perhaps the most common
type, and is especially noticeable in the Thames Valley, in the Eastern
Midlands, in Kesteven and Yorkshire, but the latter prevails in Essex
and in the south-west. In the Anglo-Saxon landbooks we also have
evidence of a third type of village organisation, common in districts
where woodlands predominate. In this type an arable head-village had
appendant to it a number of woodland members, often lying at a
considerable distance and quite detached. The English spoke of these
woodlands as " den baere" or " wald baere," or more shortly as "dens. "
Instances of villages having detached woodlands should perhaps be given,
as this type has hardly attracted the attention it deserves. In Middlesex,
Fulham and Finchley; in Hertfordshire, Hatfield and Totteridge;
in Buckinghamshire, Eton and Hedgerley, or Taplow and Penn; in
Berkshire, Ilsley and West Woodhay; in Hampshire, King's Worthy
and Pamber, or Micheldever and Durley; in Surrey, Battersea and
Penge; in Sussex, Felpham and Fittleworth; Stanmer and Lindtield;
Washington and Horsham. In all these pairs the second village named
was originally a detached woodland dependent on the other. In the
Chilterns, in Kent and in the Weald generally this was the common
type of organisation, and it is for this reason that so many of the woodland
villages appear to be absent from the Domesday Survey. A "den"
might sometimes be fifteen miles away from the head village and even


## p. 573 (#605) ############################################

English Schools and Scholars 573
in another county. The system applied also to marshes, heaths and
moorlands. Yet another type was the arable village with a number of
surrounding " ends," "cots," or "wicks,11 some of these dependencies being
tilled, some only used as pasture farms producing cheeses. It is obvious
that no one hypothesis can be imagined which will account for the
development of all these varieties of type or for the great differences in the
conditions under which the occupying peasants held them. One thing only
stands out clearly. In quite early times the basis of the organisation was
distinctly aristocratic, and constantly became more so as the kingdoms
became consolidated and the relative distance between a king or aetheling
and the cultivating peasants became greater. The advent too of the
church, as a considerable landowner, only strengthened the aristocratic
and feudal tendencies.
Before closing this chapter a few words should perhaps be added on
the spread of learning and education among the English, while Mercia
was dominant. Something has already been said as to the immediate
effect produced by the advent of the first missionaries; it remains to
speak of the schools which gave lustre to the seventh and eighth
centuries and of the writers trained in them. The most important
schools were those of Wearmouth, Canterbury, and York. The first
was set up by Benedict Biscop, founder of Wearmouth and Jarrow,
who died in 690. He journeyed five times to Rome and each time
came back with art treasures and a goodly store of books. These he
particularly recommended to the care of his monks on his death-bed.
The progress of his school can best be judged by the after career of its
most famous pupil, the Venerable Bede. The school of Canterbury
owed its efficiency, not to Augustine, but to Hadrian the African abbot,
who first recommended Theodore to Pope Vitalian and then accompanied
him to England in 669. Like Theodore, Hadrian was well versed in
both Latin and Greek, and he also taught verse-making, music, astronomy,
arithmetic, and medicine. Pupils soon crowded to the school and many
afterwards became famous clerics, for example, John of Beverley; but
undoubtedly the most considerable of all from the literary standpoint
was Aldhelm, whom we have already spoken of as bishop of Sherborne.
For his time AldhelnTs learning was very comprehensive. His extant
writings comprise a treatise both in prose and verse on the praise of
virginity, which had an immediate success, a collection of one hundred
riddles and acrostics, and several remarkable letters, one being addressed
to Geraint, the king of Devon, and another to Aldfrid, the king of
Northumbria. These writings shew acquaintance with a very extensive
literature both Christian and profane, and also a great love for an
out-of-the-way vocabulary. A considerable number of scholars took to
imitating his style, the most important among them being Hweetberct,
abbot of Wearmouth from 716, and Tatwin, a monk of Bredon in
Worcestershire, who became archbishop of Canterbury in 781.


## p. 574 (#606) ############################################

574 Bede. Alcuin. The Court Minstrels
Far the greatest and most attractive figure among the scholars of
the period is Bede, who was born in 672 and spent his whole life of
sixty-three years at Jarrow, never journeying further afield than York.
His style is exactly the opposite to that of Aldhelm. It has no
eccentricities or affectations, but is always direct, sincere, and simple.
Year by year for forty years he worked industriously, producing in turn
commentaries on the Scriptures and works on natural history, grammar,
and history. For us his historical works are the most important, and
of these the greatest and best is the Ecclesiastical History of the English
Nation. This contains five books. The first is introductory and deals
briefly with Christianity in Britain before the advent of Augustine; the
other four books deal each with a period of about 83 years, or one
generation, and bring the story down to 731. The success of this history
was immediate, and copies of it quickly spread over the Continent, so
that at his death Bede had secured a European reputation.
Bede's most important pupil was Ecgbert, already mentioned as the
first Archbishop of York.