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THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
A HISTORY OF
THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH
TILL THE PERIOD OF
THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
BY
JOHN MITCHELL KEMBLE, M.A., F.C.P.S.,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT MUNICH, AND OF THE ROYAL
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AT BERLIN,
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF HISTORY IN STOCKHOLM, AND OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETY OF HISTORY IN COPENHAGEN,
ETC. ETC. ETC.
-----------------------
“Nobilis et strenua, iuxtaque dotem naturae sagacissima gens Saxonum, ab
antiquis etiam scriptoribus memorata.”
-----------------------
A NEW EDITION, REVISED BY
WALTER DE GRAY BIRCH, F.R.S.L.,
_Senior Assistant of the Department of Manuscripts in the British
Museum, Honorary Librarian of the Royal Society of Literature, Honorary
Secretary of the British Archæological Association, etc._
VOLUME I.
LONDON:
BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY.
1876.
[Illustration:
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS,
RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET.
]
CONTENTS.
VOL. II.
BOOK II.
THE PRINCIPLES AND PROGRESS OF THE CHANGE IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER Page
I. Growth of the Kingly Power 1
II. The Regalia or Rights of Royalty 29
III. The King’s Court and Household 104
IV. The Ealdorman or Duke 125
V. The Geréfa 151
VI. The Witena Gemót 182
VII. The Towns 262
VIII. The Bishop 342
IX. The Clergy and Monks 414
X. The Income of the Clergy 467
XI. The Poor 497
APPENDIX.
A. The Dooms of the City of London 521
B. Tithe 545
C. Towns 550
D. Cyricsceat 559
THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
------------------------------------
BOOK II.
THE PRINCIPLES AND PROGRESS OF THE CHANGE IN ENGLAND.
CHAPTER I.
GROWTH OF THE KINGLY POWER.
The object of the First Book was generally to give a clear view of the
principles upon which the original settlement of the Anglosaxons was
founded. But as our earliest fortunes are involved in an obscurity
caused by the almost total absence of contemporary records, and as the
principles themselves are not historically developed in all their
integrity, at least in this country, many conclusions could only be
arrived at through a system of induction, by comparing the known facts
of Teutonic history in other lands, or at earlier periods, by tracing
the remnants of old institutions in their influence upon society in an
altered, and perhaps somewhat deteriorated, condition, and lastly by
general reasoning derived from the nature of society itself. This Second
Book is however devoted to the historical development of those
principles, in periods whereof we possess more sufficient record, and to
an investigation of the form in which, after a long series of
compromises, our institutions slowly and gradually unfolded themselves,
till the close of the Anglosaxon monarchy. The two points upon which
this part of the subject more particularly turns, are, the introduction
of Christianity, and the progressive consolidation and extension of the
kingly power; and round these two points the chapters of this Book will
naturally group themselves. It is fortunate for us that the large amount
of historical materials which we possess, enables us to follow the
various social changes in considerable detail, and renders it possible
to let the Anglosaxons tell their own story to a much greater extent
than in the first Book.
In the course of years, continual wars had removed a multitude of petty
kings or chieftains from the scene; a consolidation of countries had
taken place; actual sovereignty, grounded on the law of force, on
possession, or on federal compacts, had raised a few of the old dynasts
above the rank of their fellows; the other nobles, and families of royal
lineage, had for the most part submitted to the law of the comitatus,
swelling the ranks, adorning the court, and increasing the power of
princes who had risen upon their degradation; and at the commencement of
the seventh century, England presented the extraordinary spectacle of at
least eight independent kingdoms, of greater or less power and
influence, and, as we may reasonably believe, very various degrees of
civil and moral cultivation. In the extreme south-eastern corner of the
island was the Kentish confederation, comprising in all probability the
present counties of Kent, Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, and Sussex, whose
numerous kings acknowledged the supremacy of Æðelberht, the son of
Eormanríc, a prince of the house of Æscings, originally perhaps a Sussex
family, but who claimed their royal descent from Wóden, through Hengist,
the first traditional king of Kent. Under this head three of the eight
named kingdoms were thus united; but successful warlike enterprise or
the praise of superior wisdom had extended the political influence of
the Æscing even to the southern bank of the Humber. Next to Sussex,
along the southern coast, and as far westward as the border of the Welsh
in Dorsetshire or Devon, lay the kingdom of the Westsaxons or Gewissas,
which stretched northward to the Thames and westward to the Severn, and
probably extended along the latter river over at least a part of
Gloucestershire: this kingdom, or rather confederation, comprised all or
part of the following counties; Hampshire with the Isle of Wight, a
tributary sovereignty; Dorsetshire, perhaps a part of Devonshire,
Wiltshire, Berkshire, a portion of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and
Middlesex, up to the Chiltern Hills. Eastanglia occupied the extreme
east of the island, stretching to the north and west up to the Wash and
the marshes of Lincoln and Cambridgeshire, and comprehending, together
with its marches, Norfolk and Suffolk, and part at least of Cambridge,
Huntingdon, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Mercia with its dependent
sovereignties occupied nearly all the remaining portion of England east
of the Severn and south of the Humber, including a portion of
Herefordshire, and probably also of Salop, beyond the western bank of
the former river: while two small kingdoms, often united into one, but
when separate, called Deira and Bernicia, filled the remaining space
from the Humber to the Pictish border, which may be represented by a
line running irregularly north-east from Dumbarton to Inverkeithing[1].
In the extreme west the remains of the Keltic populations who had
disdained to place themselves under the yoke of the Saxons, still
maintained a dangerous and often threatening independence: and Cornwall
and Devon, North and South Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, Cumberland,
perhaps even part of Northumberland, still formed important fortresses,
garrisoned by this hardy and unsubjugated race. Beyond the Picts,
throughout the north of Scotland, and in the neighbouring island of
Ireland, were the Scots, a Keltic race, but not so nearly allied as the
Cornish, Cymric and Pictish tribes.
-----
Footnote 1:
There is not much positive evidence on this subject: but perhaps the
following considerations may appear of weight. The distinctive names
of Water in the two principal Keltic languages of these islands,
appear to be _Aber_ and _Inver_: the former occurs frequently in
Wales, the latter never: on the other hand, Aber rarely, if ever,
occurs in Ireland, while Inver does. If we now take a good map of
England and Wales and Scotland, we shall find the following data.
In Wales:
Aber-avon, lat. 51° 36´ N., long. 3° 47´ W.
Abergavenny, lat. 51° 49´ N., long. 3° 2´ W.
Abergwilli, lat. 51° 52´ N., long. 4° 17´ W.
Aberystwith, lat. 52° 25´ N., long. 4° 4´ W.
Aberfraw, lat. 53° 12´ N., long. 4° 28´ W.
Abergele, lat. 53° 20´ N., long. 3° 38´ W.
In Scotland:
Aberlady, lat. 56° 0´ N., long. 2° 52´ W.
Aberdour, lat. 56° 3´ N., long. 3° 17´ W.
Aberfoil, lat. 56° 20´ N., long. 4° 21´ W.
Abernethy, lat. 56° 19´ N., long. 3° 18´ W.
Aberbrothie (Arbroath), lat. 56° 33´ N., long. 2° 35´ W.
Aberfeldy, lat. 56° 37´ N., long. 3° 51´ W.
Abergeldie, lat. 57° 3´ N., long. 3° 6´ W.
Aberchalder, lat. 57° 6´ N., long. 4° 46´ W.
Aberdeen, lat. 57° 8´ N., long. 2° 5´ W.
Aberchirdir, lat. 57° 34´ N., long. 2° 37´ W.
Aberdour, lat. 57° 40´ N., long. 2° 11´ W.
In Scotland:
Inverkeithing, lat. 56° 2´ N., long. 3° 23´ W.
Inverary, lat. 56° 15´ N., long. 5° 4´ W.
Inverarity, lat. 56° 36´ N., long. 2° 54´ W.
Inverbervie, lat. 56° 52´ N., long. 2° 21´ W.
Invergeldie, lat. 57° 1´ N., long. 3° 12´ W.
Invernahavon, lat, 57° 1´ N., long. 4° 9´ W.
Invergelder, lat. 57° 2´ N., long. 3° 15´ W.
Invermoriston, lat. 57° 12´ N., long. 4° 40´ W.
Inverness, lat. 57° 28´ N., long. 4° 13´ W.
Invernetty, lat. 57° 29´ N., long. 1° 48´ W.
Invercaslie, lat. 57° 58´ N., long. 4° 36´ W.
Inver, lat. 58° 9´ N., long. 5° 10´ W.
The line of separation then between the Welsh or Pictish, and the
Scotch or Irish Kelts, if measured by the occurrence of these names,
would run obliquely from S.W. to N.E., straight up Loch Fyne,
following nearly the boundary between Perthshire and Argyle, trending
to the N.E. along the present boundary between Perth and Inverness,
Aberdeen and Inverness, Banff and Elgin, till about the mouth of the
river Spey. The boundary between the Picts and English may have been
much less settled, but it probably ran from Dumbarton, along the upper
edge of Renfrewshire, Lanark and Linlithgow till about Abercorn, that
is along the line of the Clyde to the Frith of Forth.
-----
It is probable enough that the princes who presided over these several
aggregations of communities, had their traditional or family alliances
and friendships, as well as their enmities, political and personal, and
that some description of public law may consequently have grown up among
them, by which their national intercourse was regulated. But we cannot
suppose this to have been either very comprehensive or well defined.
Least of all can we find any proof that there was a community of action
among them, of a systematic and permanent character. A national
priesthood, and a central service in which all alike participated, had
any such existed, might have formed a point of union for all the races;
but there is no record of this, and, I think, but little probability of
its having been found at any time. If we consider the various sources
from which the separate populations were derived, and the very different
periods at which they became masters of their several seats; their
constant hostility and the differences of language[2] and law; above all
the distance of their settlements, severed by deep and gloomy forests,
rude hills, unforded streams, or noxious and pestilential morasses, we
can hardly imagine any concert among them for the establishment of a
common worship; it is even doubtful—so meagre are our notices of the
national heathendom—whether the same gods were revered all over England;
although the descent of all the reigning families from Wóden would seem
to speak for his worship at least having been universal. Again, there is
reason to doubt that the priesthood occupied here quite so commanding a
position as they may have enjoyed upon the continent, partly because the
carelessness or hatred of the British Christians refused to attempt the
conversion of their adversaries[3], and thus afforded no opportunity for
a reaction or combined effort at resistance on the part of the Pagans;
and partly because we cannot look for any very deep rooted religious
convictions in the breast of the wandering, military adventurer, removed
from the time-hallowed sites of ancient, local worship, and strongly
tempted to “trow upon himself,” in preference to gods whose powers and
attributes he had little leisure to contemplate. The words of Coifi, a
Northumbrian high-priest, to Eádwini, do at any rate imply a feeling on
his part, that his position was not so brilliant and advantageous as he
thought himself entitled to expect; and the very expressions he uses,
implying a very considerable degree of subordination to the king of one
principality[4], are hardly consistent with the hypothesis of a national
hierarchy, which must have assumed a position scarcely inferior to that
of the sovereigns themselves. Finally, I cannot believe that, had such
an organization and such a body existed, there would be no trace of the
opposition it must have offered to the introduction of the new creed:
some record there must have been of a triumph so signal as that of
Christianity under such circumstances; and the good believers who lavish
miracles upon most inadequate occasions, must have given us some
well-authenticated cases by which the sanctity of the monk was
demonstrated to the confusion of the pagan. The silence of the Christian
historian is an eloquent evidence of the insignificant power of the
heathen priesthood.
-----
Footnote 2:
In the very early periods the Saxon inhabitants of different parts of
England would probably have found it difficult to understand one
another.
Footnote 3:
Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 22. “Qui, inter alia inenarrabilium scelerum
facta, quae historicus eorum Gildas flebili sermone describit et hoc
addebant, ut nunquam genti Saxonum sive Anglorum secum Brittaniam
incolenti verbum fidei praedicando committerent.”
Footnote 4:
“Tu vide, rex, quale sit hoc quod nobis modo praedicatur: ego autem
tibi verissime quod certum didici, profiteor, quia nihil omnino
virtutis habet, nihil utilitatis, religio illa quam hucusque tenuimus;
nullus enim tuorum studiosius quam ego culturae deorum nostrorum se
subdidit, et nihilominus multi sunt qui ampliora a te beneficia quam
ego, et maiores accipiunt dignitates, magisque prosperantur in omnibus
quae agenda vel adquirenda disponunt. Si autem dii aliquid ualerent me
potius iuvare vellent, qui illis impensius servire curavi.” Beda, H.
E. ii. 13. That Coifi is a genuine Northumbrian name, and not that of
a Keltic druid, is shown in a paper on Anglosaxon surnames, read
before the Archæological Institute at Winchester by the author in
1845.
-----
Much less can we admit that there was any central political authority,
recognized, systematic and regulated, by which the several kingdoms were
combined into a corporate body. There is indeed a theory, respectable
for its antiquity, and reproduced by modern ingenuity, according to
which this important fact is assumed, and we are not only taught that
the several kingdoms formed a confederation, at whose head, by election
or otherwise, one of the princes was placed with imperial power, but
that this institution was derived by direct imitation from the custom of
the Roman empire: we further learn that the title of this high
functionary was Bretwalda, or Emperor of Britain, and that he possessed
the imperial decorations of the Roman state[5]. When this discovery was
first made I know not, but the most detailed account that I have seen
may be given from the, in many respects, excellent and neglected work of
Rapin. He tells us[6]:—
“The Saxons, Jutes, and Angles, that conquered the best part of Britain,
looking upon themselves as one and the same people[7], as they had been
in Germany, established a form of government, as like as possible to
what they had lived under in their own country. They formed their
Wittena-Gemot, or assembly of wise men, to settle the common affairs of
the seven kingdoms, and conferred the command of their armies upon one
chosen out of the seven kings, to whom, for that reason no doubt, some
have given the title of Monarch, on pretence of his having the
precedence and some superiority over the rest. But to me that dignity
seems rather to have been like that of Stadtholder of the United
Provinces of the Low Countries. There was however some difference
between the Saxon government in Britain and that in Germany. For
instance, in Germany the governor of each province entirely depended on
the General Assembly, where the supreme power was lodged; whereas in
Britain, each king was sovereign in his own dominions. But
notwithstanding this, all the kingdoms together were, in some respects,
considered as the same state, and every one submitted to the resolutions
of the General Assembly of the Seven Kingdoms, to which he gave his
consent by himself or representative.... A free election, and sometimes
force, gave the Heptarchy a chief or monarch, whose authority was more
or less, according to their strength[8]. For though the person invested
with this office had no right to an unlimited authority, there was
scarce one of these monarchs but what aspired to an absolute power.”
-----
Footnote 5:
Palgrave, Anglos. Commonw. i. 562 _seq._ The Roman part of the theory
is very well exploded by Lappenberg, who nevertheless gives far too
much credence to the rest.
Footnote 6:
Vol. i. p. 42 of Tindal’s translation.
Footnote 7:
This seems very doubtful, at least until lapse of years, commerce, and
familiar intercourse had broken down the barriers between different
races.
Footnote 8:
In the second edition of Tindal’s Rapin there is a print representing
the Kings of the Heptarchy in council. The president, Monarch or
Bretwalda, is very amusingly made larger and more ferocious than the
rest, to express his superior dignity!
-----
This description has at least the advantage of detail and of
consistency, even though it should unfortunately lack that of truth; but
most of those who in more modern times have adopted the hypothesis,
refrain from giving us any explanation of the fact it assumes: they tell
us indeed the title, and profess to name those who successively bore it,
but they are totally silent as to the powers of this great public
officer, as to the mode of his appointment, the manner in which he
exerted his authority, or the object for which such authority was found
necessary. I must frankly confess that I am unable to find any evidence
whatever in favour of this view, which appears to me totally
inconsistent with everything which we know of the state and principles
of society at the early period with which we have to deal. In point of
fact, everything depends upon the way in which we construe a passage of
Beda, together with one in the Saxon Chronicle, borrowed from him, and
the meaning which history and philology justify us in giving to the
words made use of by both authors. As the question is of some
importance, it may as well be disposed of at once, although only two
so-called Bretwaldas are recorded previous to the seventh century.
Modern ingenuity, having hastily acquiesced in the existence of this
authority, has naturally been somewhat at a loss to account for it; yet
this is obviously the most important part of the problem: accordingly
Mr. Sharon Turner looks upon the Bretwalda as a kind of war-king, a
temporary military leader: he says[9],—
“The disaster of Ceawlin gave safety to Kent. Ethelbert preserved his
authority in that kingdom, and at length proceeded to that insulary
predominance among the Anglosaxon kings, which they called the
Bretwalda, or the ruler of Britain. Whether this was a mere title
assumed by Hengist, and afterwards by Ella, and continued by the most
successful Anglosaxon prince of his day, or conceded in any national
council of all the Anglosaxons, or ambitiously assumed by the Saxon king
that most felt and pressed his temporary power,—whether it was an
imitation of the British unbennaeth, or a continuation of the Saxon
custom of electing a war-cyning, cannot now be ascertained.”
-----
Footnote 9:
Hist. Angl. Sax. bk. iii. ch. 5, vol. i. p. 319.
-----
To this he adds in a note:—
“The proper force of this word Bretwalda cannot imply conquest, because
Ella the First is not said to have conquered Hengist or Cerdic; nor did
the other Bretwaldas conquer the other Saxon kingdoms.”
Again he returns to the charge: in the eighth chapter of the same book,
he says[10]:—
“Perhaps the conjecture on this dignity which would come nearest the
truth, would be, that it was the Walda or ruler of the Saxon kingdoms
against the Britons, while the latter maintained the struggle for the
possession of the country,—a species of Agamemnon against the general
enemy, not a title of dignity or power against each other. If so, it
would be but the war-king of the Saxons in Britain, against its native
chiefs.”
-----
Footnote 10:
Hist. Angl. Sax. i. 378.
-----
Lappenberg, adopting this last view, refines upon it in detail: he
believes the Bretwalda to have been the elected generalissimo of the
Saxons against the Welsh or other Keltic races, and that as the tide of
conquest rolled onwards, the dignity shifted to the shoulders of that
prince whose position made him the best guardian of the frontiers. But
this will scarcely account to us for the Bretwaldadom of Ælle in Sussex,
Æðelberht in Kent, or Rǽdwald in Eastanglia; yet these are three
especially named. Besides we have a right to require some evidence that
there ever was a common action of the Saxons against the Britons, and
that they really were in the habit of appointing war-kings in England,
two points on which there exists not a tittle of proof. Indeed it seems
clear to me that a piece of vicious philology lurks at the bottom of
this whole theory, and that it rests entirely upon the supposition that
_Bret_walda means Ruler of the _Britons_, which is entirely erroneous.
Yet one would think that on this point there ought to have been no doubt
for even a moment, and that it hardly required for its refutation the
philological demonstration which will be given. Let us ask by whom was
the name used or applied? By the Saxons: but surely the Saxons could
never mean to designate themselves by the name _Bret_, Britain; nor on
the other hand could a general against the Britons be properly called
their _wealda_ or king, the relation expressed by the word _wealda_
being that of sovereignty over subjects, not opposition to enemies.
Moreover, if this British theory were at all sound, how could we account
for the title being so rarely given to the kings of Wessex, and never to
those of Mercia, both of whom were nevertheless in continual hostile
contact with the Welsh, and of whom the former at least exercised
sovereign rights over a numerous Welsh population dispersed throughout
their dominions? Again, why should it have been given to successive
kings of Northumberland, whose contact with the British aborigines, even
as Picts, was not of any long continuance or great moment[11]? Above
all, why should it not have been given to Æðelfríð, who as Beda tells us
was the most severe scourge the Kelts had ever met with[12]? But there
are other serious difficulties arising from the nature of the military
force which, on any one of the suppositions we are considering, must
have been placed at this war-king’s disposal: is it, for example,
conceivable, that people whose military duty did not extend beyond the
defence of their own frontiers, and who even then could only be brought
into the field under the conduct of their own shire-officers, would have
marched away from home, under a foreign king, to form part of a mixed
army? still more, that the comites of various princes, whose bond and
duty were of the most strictly personal character, could have been
mustered under the banner of a stranger[13]? Yet all this must be
assumed to have been usual and easy, if we admit the received opinions
as to the Bretwalda. We should also be entitled to ask how it happened
that Wulfhere, Æðelbald, Offa, Cénwulf, the preeminently military kings
of the Mercians, should have refrained from the use of a title so
properly belonging to their preponderating power in England, and so
useful in giving a legal and privileged authority to the measures of
permanent aggrandizement which their resources enabled them to take?
-----
Footnote 11:
I am not aware of the Picts, Peohtas, having ever been numbered among
the Bretwealhas.
Footnote 12:
Hist. Eccl. i. 34. “Nemo enim in tribunis, nemo in regibus plures
eorum terras, exterminatis vel subiugatis indigenis, aut tributarias
genti Anglorum, aut habitabiles fecit.”
Footnote 13:
Nearly the only instance recorded of a mixed army, is that of Penda at
Winwedfeld; but it does not appear that this consisted of anything
more than the Comitatus of various chieftains personally dependent
upon, or in alliance with, himself. We do not learn that οἰOswiu’s
victory gave him any rights over the freemen in Eastanglia, which
could hardly have been wanting had the Eastanglian _hereban_ or _fyrd_
served under Penda.
-----
Another supposition, that this dignity was in some way connected with
the ecclesiastical establishment, the foundation of new bishoprics[14]
or the presidency of the national synods, seems equally untenable; for
in the first place there were Bretwaldas before the introduction of
Christianity; and the intervention of particular princes in the
foundation of sees, without the limits of their own dominions, may be
explained without having recourse to any such hypothesis; again, the
Church never agreed to any unity till the close of the seventh century
under Theodore of Tarsus; and lastly the presidency of the synods, which
were generally held in Mercia[15], was almost exclusively in the hands
of the Mercian princes, till the Danes put an end to their kingdom, and
yet those princes never bore the title at all. In point of fact, there
was no such special title or special office, and the whole theory is
constructed upon an insufficient and untenable basis.
-----
Footnote 14:
Lappenberg seems to connect these ideas together.
Footnote 15:
The synods were mostly held at Cealchýð or at Clofeshoas. The first of
these places is doubtful: all that can be said with certainty, is,
that it was not Challock in Kent, as Ingram supposes: the Saxon name
of that place was Cealfloca. I entertain little doubt that Clofeshoas
was in the county of Gloucester and hundred of Westminster.
-----
It will be readily admitted that the fancies of the Norman chroniclers
may at once be passed over unnoticed; they are worth no more than the
still later doctrines of Rapin and others, and rest upon nothing but
their explanation of passages which we are equally at liberty to examine
and test for ourselves: I mean the passages already alluded to from Beda
and the Saxon Chronicle. Let us see then what Beda says upon this
subject. He speaks thus of Æðelberht[16]:—
“In the year of our Lord’s incarnation six hundred and sixteen, which is
the twenty-first from that wherein Augustine and his comrades were
despatched to preach unto the race of the Angles, Æðelberht, the king of
the men of Kent, after a temporal reign which he had held most
gloriously for six and fifty years, entered the eternal joys of the
heavenly kingdom: who was indeed but the third among the kings of the
Angle race who ruled over all the southern provinces, which are
separated from those of the north by the river Humber and its contiguous
boundaries; but the first of all who ascended to the kingdom of heaven.
For the first of all who obtained this empire was Ælli, king of the
Southsaxons: the second was Caelin, king of the Westsaxons, who in their
tongue was called Ceaulin: the third, as I have said, was Æðilberht,
king of the men of Kent: the fourth was Redwald, king of the
Eastanglians, who even during the life of Æðilberht, obtained
predominance for his nation: the fifth, Aeduini, king of the race of
Northumbrians, that is, the race which inhabits the northern district of
the river Humber, presided with greater power over all the populations
which dwell in Britain, Britons and Angles alike, save only the men of
Kent; he also subdued to the empire of the Angles, the Mevanian isles,
which lie between Ireland and Britain: the sixth Oswald, himself that
most Christian king of the Northumbrians, had rule with the same
boundaries: the seventh Osuiu, his brother, having for some time
governed his kingdom within nearly the same boundaries, for the most
part subdued or reduced to a tributary condition the nations also of the
Picts and Scots, who occupy the northern ends of Britain.”
-----
Footnote 16:
Hist. Eccl. ii. 5.
-----
Certainly, it must be admitted that the exception of the Men of Kent, in
the case of Eádwini, is a serious blow to the Bretwalda theory. I have
used the word _predominance_, to express the _ducatus_ or _leadership_,
of Beda, and it is clear that such a leadership is what he means to
convey. But in all the cases which he has cited, it is equally clear
from every part of his book, that the fact was a merely accidental one,
fully explained by the peculiar circumstances in every instance: it is
invariably connected with conquest, and preponderant military power: a
successful battle either against Kelt or Saxon, by removing a dangerous
neighbour or dissolving a threatening confederacy, placed greater means
at the disposal of any one prince than could be turned against him by
any other or combination of others; and he naturally assumed a right to
dictate to them, _iure belli_, in all transactions where he chose to
consider his own interests concerned. But all the facts in every case
show that there was no concert, no regular dignity, and no regular means
of obtaining it; that it was a mere fluctuating superiority, such as we
may find in Owhyhee, Tahiti, or New Zealand, due to success in war, and
lost in turn by defeat. On the rout of Ceawlin, the second Bretwalda, by
the Welsh, we learn that he was expelled from the throne, and succeeded
by Ceólwulf, who spent many years in struggles against Angles, Welsh,
Scots and Picts[17]: according to Turner’s and Lappenberg’s theory, he
was the very man to have been made Bretwalda; but we do not find this to
have been the case, or that the dignity returned to the intervening
Sussex; but Æðelberht of Kent, whose ambition had years before led him
to measure his force against Ceawlin’s, stepped into the vacant
monarchy. The truth is that Æðelberht, who had husbanded his resources,
and was of all the Saxon kings the least exposed to danger from the
Keltic populations, was enabled to impose his authority upon his brother
kings, and to make his own terms: and in a similar way, at a later
period, it is clear that Rædwald of Eastanglia was enabled to deprive
him of it. I therefore again conclude that this so-called Bretwaldadom
was a mere accidental predominance; there is no peculiar function, duty
or privilege anywhere mentioned as appertaining to it; and when Beda
describes Eádwini of Northumberland proceeding with the Roman _tufa_ or
banner before him, as an ensign of dignity, he does so in terms which
show that it was not, as Palgrave seems to imagine, an ensign of
imperial authority used by all Bretwaldas, but a peculiar and remarkable
affectation of that particular prince. Before I leave this word
_ducatus_, I may call attention to the fact that Ecgberht, whom the
Saxon Chronicle adds to the list given by Beda, has left some charters
in which he also uses it[18], and that they are the only charters in
which it does occur. From these it appears that he dated his reign ten
years earlier than his _ducatus_, that is, that he was _rex_ in 802, but
not _dux_ till 812. Now it is especially observable that in 812 he had
not yet commenced that career of successful aggression against the other
Saxon kingdoms, which justified the Chronicler in numbering him among
those whom Camden and Rapin call the Monarchs, and Palgrave the Emperors
of Britain. He did not attack Mercia and subdue Kent till 825: in the
same year he formed his alliance with Eastanglia: only in 820 did he
ruin the power of Mercia, and receive the submission of the
Northumbrians. But in the year 812 he did move an army against the
Welsh, and remained for several months engaged in military operations
within their frontier: there is every reason then to think that the
_ducatus_ of Ecgberht is only a record of those conquests over his
British neighbours, which enabled him to turn his hand with such
complete success against his Anglosaxon rivals; and thus that it has no
reference to the expression used by Beda to express the factitious
preponderance of one king over another. Let us now inquire to what the
passage in the Saxon Chronicle amounts, which has put so many of our
historians upon a wrong track, by supplying them with the suspicious
name Bretwalda. Speaking of Ecgberht the Chronicler says[19], “And the
same year king Ecgberht overran the kingdom of the Mercians, and all
that was south of the Humber; and he was the eighth king who was
Bretwalda.” And then, after naming the seven mentioned by Beda, and
totally omitting all notice of the Mercian kings, he concludes,—“the
eighth was Ecgberht, king of the Westsaxons.”
-----
Footnote 17:
Chron. Sax. an. 591, 597.
Footnote 18:
Cod. Dipl. Nos. 1038, 1039, 1041.
Footnote 19:
Chron. Sax. an. 827.
-----
Now it is somewhat remarkable that of six manuscripts in which this
passage occurs, one only reads Bretwalda: of the remaining five, four
have Bryten-walda or-wealda, and one Breten-anweald, which is precisely
synonymous with Brytenwealda. All the rules of orderly criticism would
therefore compel us to look upon this as the right reading, and we are
confirmed in so doing by finding that Æðelstán in one of his
charters[20] calls himself also “Brytenwealda ealles ðyses
ealondes,”—ruler or monarch of all this island. Now the true meaning of
this word, which is compounded of _wealda_, a ruler, and the adjective
_bryten_, is totally unconnected with Bret or Bretwealh, the name of the
British aborigines, the resemblance to which is merely accidental:
_bryten_ is derived from _breótan_, to distribute, to divide, to break
into small portions, to disperse: it is a common prefix to words
denoting wide or general dispersion[21], and when coupled with _wealda_
means no more than an extensive, powerful king, a king whose power is
widely extended. We must therefore give up the most attractive and
seducing part of all this theory, the name, which rests upon nothing but
the passage in one manuscript of the Chronicle,—and that, far from equal
to the rest in antiquity or correctness of language: and as for anything
beyond the name, I again repeat that we are indebted for it to nothing
but the ingenuity of modern scholars, deceived by what they fancied the
name itself; that there is not the slightest evidence of a king
exercising a central authority, and very little at any time, of a
combined action among the Saxons; and that it is quite as improbable
that any Saxon king should ever have had a federal army to command, as
it is certainly false that there ever was a general Witena gemót for him
to preside over. I must therefore in conclusion declare my disbelief as
well in a college of kings, as in an officer, elected or otherwise
appointed, whom they considered as their head. The development of all
the Anglosaxon kingdoms was of far too independent and fortuitous a
character for us to assume any general concert among them, especially as
that independence is manifested upon those points particularly, where a
central and combined action would have been most certain to show
itself[22].
-----
Footnote 20:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1110. “Ongolsaxna cyning ⁊ brytænwalda ealles ðyses
iglandæs;” and, in the corresponding Latin, “Rex et rector totius
huius Britanniae insulae.” an. 34.
Footnote 21:
The following words compounded with _Bryten_ will explain my meaning
to the Saxon scholar: _Bryten-cyning_ (exactly equivalent to
_bryten-wealda_), a powerful king. Cod. Exon. p. 331. _Bryten-grund_,
the wide expense of earth. Ibid. p. 22. _Bryten-ríce_, a spacious
realm. Ibid. p. 192. _Bryten-wong_, the spacious plain of earth. Ibid.
p. 24. The adjective is used in the same sense, but uncompounded,
thus; _breotone bold_, a spacious dwelling. Cædm. p. 308.
Footnote 22:
I allude more particularly to the introduction of Christianity, the
enactment of laws, the establishment of dioceses, and military
measures against the Britons. In two late publications, Mr. Hallam has
bestowed his attention upon the same subject, and with much the same
result. His acute and well-balanced mind seems to have been struck by
the historical difficulties which lie in the way of the Bretwalda
theory, though he does not attach so much force as I think we ought,
to its total inconsistency with the general social state of Anglosaxon
England in the sixth and seventh centuries, or as seems justly due to
the philological argument. He cites from Adamnan a passage in these
words: “(Oswald) totius Britanniae imperator ordinatus a deo.” But
these words only prove at the utmost that Adamnan attributed a certain
power to Oswald, connected in fact with conquest, and implying
anything but consent, election or appointment, by his fellow-kings.
And Mr. Hallam himself inclines to the belief that the title may have
been one given to Oswald by his own subjects, rather than the
assertion of a fact that he truly ruled over all Britain. He conceives
that the three Northumbrian kings, having been victorious in war and
paramount over the minor kingdoms, were really designated, at least
among their own subjects, by the name Bretwalda, or ruler of Britain,
and “totius Britanniae imperator,”—an assumption of pompous titles
characteristic of the vaunting tone which continued to increase down
to the Conquest. (Supplemental Notes to the View of the Middle Ages,
p. 199 _seq._) This however is hardly consistent with Beda and the
Chronicle. The only passage in its favour is that of Adamnan, and this
is confined to one prince. Adamnan however was a Kelt, and on this
account I should be cautious respecting any language he used. Again, I
am not prepared to admit the probability of a territorial title, at a
time when kings were kings of the people, not of the land. But most of
all do I demur to the reading Bretwalda itself, which rests upon the
authority neither of coins nor inscriptions, and is supported only by
one passage of a very bad manuscript; while it is refuted by five much
better copies of the same work, and a charter: I therefore do not
scruple to say that there is no authority for the word. In all but
this I concur with Mr. Hallam, whose opinion is a most welcome support
to my own.
-----
But although I cannot admit the growth of an imperial power in any such
way, I still believe the royal authority to have been greatly
consolidated, and thereby extended, before the close of the sixth
century. It is impossible, for a very long period, to look upon the
Anglosaxon kingdoms otherwise than as camps, planted upon an enemy’s
territory, and not seldom in a state of mutual hostility. All had either
originated in, or had at some period fallen into, a state of military
organization, in which the leaders are permitted to assume powers very
inconsistent with the steady advance of popular liberty; and in the
progress of their history, events were continually recurring which
favoured the permanent establishment and consolidation of those powers.
Upon all their western and northern frontiers lay ever-watchful and
dangerous Keltic populations, the co-operation of whose more inland
brethren was always to be dreaded, and whose attacks were periodically
renewed till very long after the preponderance of one crown over the
rest was secured,—attacks only too often favoured by the civil wars and
internal struggles of the Germanic conquerors. Upon all the eastern
coasts hovered swarms of daring adventurers, ready to put in practice
upon the Saxons themselves the frightful lesson of piracy which these
had given the Roman world in the third and fourth centuries, and ever
welcomed by the Keltic inhabitants as the ministers of their own
vengeance. The constant state of military preparation which was thus
rendered necessary could have no other result than that of giving a vast
preponderance to the warlike over the peaceful institutions; of raising
the practised and well-armed comites to a station yearly more and more
important; of leading to the multiplication of fortresses, with their
royal castellans and stationary garrisons; nay—by constantly placing the
freemen under martial law, and inuring them to the urgencies of military
command—of finally breaking down the innate feeling and guarantees of
freedom, and even of materially ruining the cultivator, all whose energy
and all whose time were not too much, if a comfortable subsistence was
to be wrung from the soil he owned. It is also necessary to bear in mind
the power derived from forcible possession of lands from which the
public enemy had been expelled, and which, we may readily believe,
turned to the advantage, mostly if not exclusively, of the king and his
nobles. No wonder then if at a very early period the Mark-organization,
which contained within itself the seeds of its own decay, had begun to
give way, and that a systematic _commendation_, as it was called, to the
adjacent lords was beginning to take its place. To the operation of
these natural causes we must refer the indisputable predominance
established by a few superior kings before the end of the sixth century,
not only over the numerous dynastic families which still remained
scattered over the face of the country, but also over the free holders
in the gá or scýr.
To these however was added one of still greater moment. The introduction
of Christianity in a settled form, which finally embraced the whole
Saxon portion of the island, dates from the commencement of the seventh
century. Though not unknown to the various British tribes, who had long
been in communication with their fellow-believers of Gaul and, according
to some authorities[23], of Rome, it had made but little progress among
the German tribes, although a tendency to give it at least a tolerant
hearing had for some time been making way among them[24]. But in 595
Pope Gregory the Great determined upon giving effect to his scheme of a
missionary expedition to Britain, which he had long revolved, had at one
time determined to undertake in person, and had relinquished only as far
as his own journey was concerned, in consequence of the opposition
manifested by the inhabitants of Rome to his quitting the city. Having
finally matured his plan, he selected a competent number of monks and
ecclesiastics, and despatched them under the guidance of Augustine, with
directions to found an episcopal church among the heathen Saxons. The
progress and success of this missionary effort must not be treated of
here; suffice it to say that, one by one, the Teutonic kingdoms of the
island accepted the new faith, and that before the close of the first
century from the arrival of Augustine, the whole of German England was
united into one church, under a Metropolitan, who accidentally was also
a missionary from Rome[25].
-----
Footnote 23:
See Schrödl, Erste Jahrhund. der Angl. Kirche, 1840, p. 2, notes. If
the assertion of Prosper Tyro is to be trusted, that Celestine sent
Germanus into Britain as his vicar, _vice sua_, the relation must have
been an intimate one. See also Nennius, Hist. cap. 54. Neander however
declares against the dependence of the British church upon Rome, and
derives it from Asia Minor. Alg. Geschichte der Christ. Relig. u.
Kirche, vol. i. pt. 1. p. 121. The question has been treated in late
times as one of bitter controversy.
Footnote 24:
This may be inferred from Gregory’s letters to Theódríc and Theódbert
and to Brunichildis. “Atque ideo pervenit ad nos Anglorum gentem ad
fidem Christianam, Deo miserante, desideranter velle converti, sed
sacerdotes e vicino negligere,” etc.; again: “Indicamus ad nos
pervenisse Anglorum gentem, Deo annuente, velle fieri Christianam; sed
sacerdotes, qui in vicino sunt, pastoralem erga eos sollicitudinem non
habere.” Bed. Op. Minora, ii. 234, 235.
Footnote 25:
Theodore of Tarsus.
-----
Strange would it have been had the maxims of law or rules of policy
which these men brought with them, been different from those which
prevailed in the place from which they came. Roman feelings, Roman views
and modes of judging, the traditions of the empire and the city, the
legislation of the emperors and the popes,—these were their sources both
of opinion and action. The predominance of the kings must have appeared
to them natural and salutary; the subordination of all men to their
appointed rulers was even one of the doctrines of Christianity itself,
as taught by the great apostle of the gentiles, and recommended by the
example of the Saviour. But the consolidation and advancement of the
royal authority, if they could only form a secure alliance with it,
could not but favour their great object of spreading the Gospel among
populations otherwise dispersed and inaccessible: hence it seems
probable that all their efforts would be directed to the end which
circumstances already favoured, and that the whole spiritual and
temporal influence of the clergy would be thrown into the scale of
monarchy. Moreover the clergy supplied a new point of approach between
our own and foreign courts: to say nothing of Rome, communication with
which soon became close and frequent, very shortly after their
establishment here, we find an increased and increasing intercourse
between our kings and those of Gaul; and this again offered an
opportunity of becoming familiar with the views and opinions which had
flowed, as it were, from the imperial city into the richest and happiest
of her provinces. The strict Teutonic law of wergyld, they perhaps could
not prevail to change, and to the last, the king, like every other man,
continued to have his price; but the power of the clergy is manifest
even in the very first article of Æðelberht’s law, and to it we in all
probability owe the ultimate affixing of the penalty of death to the
crime of high-treason,—a marvellous departure from the ancient rule.
Taking all the facts of the case into account, we cannot but believe
that the introduction of Christianity, which not only taught the
necessity of obedience to lawful authority, but accustomed men to a more
central and combined exercise of authority through the very spectacle of
the episcopal system itself, tended in no slight degree to perpetuate
the new order which was gradually undermining and superseding the old
Mark-organization, and thus finally brought England into the royal
circle of European families[26].
-----
Footnote 26:
Æðelberht of Kent married a Frankish princess, so did Æðelwulf of
Wessex. Offa of Mercia was engaged in negotiations for a nuptial
alliance with the house of Charlemagne, and several Anglosaxon ladies
of royal blood found husbands among the sovereign families of the
Continent.
-----
The chapters of the present Book will be devoted to an investigation of
the institutions proper to this altered condition, to the officers by
whom the government of the country was conducted, from the seventh to
the eleventh centuries, and to the general social relations which thus
arose. If in the course of our investigation it should appear that a
gradually diminishing share of freedom remained to the people, yet must
we bear in mind that the old organization was one which could not keep
pace with the progress of human society, and that it was becoming daily
less suited to the ends for which it first existed; that in this, as in
all great changes, a compromise necessarily took place, and mutual
sacrifices were required; after all, that we finally retained a great
amount of rational and orderly liberty, full of the seeds of future
development, and gained many of the advantages of Roman cultivation,
without paying too high a price for them, in the loss of our
nationality.