THE GÁ OR SCÍR.
Next in order of constitution, if not of time, is the union of two,
three or more Marks in a federal bond for purposes of a religious,
judicial or even political character. The technical name for such a
union is in Germany, a Gau or Bant[126]; in England the ancient name Gá
has been almost universally superseded by that of Scír or Shire. For the
most part the natural divisions of the country are the divisions also of
the Gá; and the size of this depends upon such accidental limits as well
as upon the character and dispositions of the several collective bodies
which we have called Marks.
The Gá is the second and final form of unsevered possession; for every
larger aggregate is but the result of a gradual reduction of such
districts, under a higher political or administrative unity, different
only in degree and not in kind from what prevailed individually in each.
The kingdom is only a larger Gá than ordinary; indeed the Gá itself was
the original kingdom.
But the unsevered possession or property which we thus find in the Gá is
by no means to be considered in the same light as that which has been
described in the Mark. The inhabitants are settled as Markmen, not as
Gá-men: the cultivated land which lies within the limits of the larger
community is all distributed into the smaller ones.
-----
Footnote 126:
Less usual are Eiba and Para. The Norse Herrad may in some sense be
compared with these divisions.
-----
As the Mark contained within itself the means of doing right between man
and man, _i. e._, its Markmót; as it had its principal officer or judge,
and beyond a doubt its priest and place of religious observances, so the
County, Scír or Gá had all these on a larger and more imposing scale;
and thus it was enabled to do right between Mark and Mark, as well as
between man and man, and to decide those differences the arrangement of
which transcended the powers of the smaller body. If the elders and
leaders of the Mark could settle the mode of conducting the internal
affairs of their district, so the elders and leaders of the Gá (the same
leading markmen in a corporate capacity) could decide upon the weightier
causes that affected the whole community; and thus the Scírgemót or
Shiremoot was the completion of a system of which the Mearcmót was the
foundation. Similarly, as the several smaller units had arrangements on
a corresponding scale for divine service, so the greater and more
important religious celebrations in which all the Marks took part, could
only be performed under the auspices and by the authority of the Gá.
Thus alone could due provision be made for sacrifices which would have
been too onerous for a small and poor district, and an equalization of
burthens be effected; while the machinery of government and efficient
means of protection were secured.
At these great religious rites, accompanied as they ever were by the
solemn Ðing, _placitum_ or court, thrice in the year the markmen
assembled unbidden: and here they transacted the ordinary and routine
business required. On emergencies however, which did not brook delay,
the leaders could issue their peremptory summons to a bidden Ðing, and
in this were then decided the measures necessary for the maintenance and
well-being of the community, and the mutual guarantee of life and
honour. To the Gá then probably belonged, as an unsevered possession,
the lands necessary for the site and maintenance of a temple, the supply
of beasts for sacrifice, and the endowment of a priest or priests:
perhaps also for the erection of a stockade or fortress, and some
shelter for the assembled freemen in the Ðing. Moreover, if land existed
which from any cause had not been included within the limits of some
Mark, we may believe that it became the public property of the Gá, _i.
e._, of all the Marks in their corporate capacity: this at least may be
inferred from the rights exercised at a comparatively later period over
waste lands, by the constituted authorities, the Duke, Count or King.
Accident must more or less have determined the seat of the
Gá-jurisdiction: perhaps here and there some powerful leading Mark,
already in the possession of a holy site, may have drawn the
neighbouring settlers into its territory: but as the possession and
guardianship of the seat of government could not but lead to the
vindication of certain privileges and material advantages to its
holders, it is not unreasonable to believe that where the Marks
coalesced on equal terms, the temple-lands would be placed without the
peculiar territorial possession of each, as they often were in Greece,
upon the ἐσχατιὰ or boundary-land. On the summit of a range of hills,
whose valleys sufficed for the cultivation of the markmen, on the
watershed from which the fertilizing streams descended, at the point
where the boundaries of two or three communities touched one another,
was the proper place for the common periodical assemblages of the free
men: and such sites, marked even to this day by a few venerable oaks,
may be observed in various parts of England[127].
-----
Footnote 127:
There are instances which show that the custom, afterwards kept up, of
“Trysting Trees,” was an ancient one. Probably some great trees marked
the site of the several jurisdictions: I find mentioned the scírác,
the hundredes treów and the mearcbeám.
-----
The description which has been given might seem at first more properly
to relate to an abstract political unity than to a real and territorial
one: no doubt the most important quality of the Gá or Scír was its power
of uniting distinct populations for public purposes: in this respect it
resembled the shire, while the sheriff’s court was still of some
importance; or even yet, where the judges coming on their circuit, under
a commission, hold a shiremoot or court in each shire for gaol-delivery.
Yet the Shire is a territorial division[128] as well as an abstract and
merely legal formulary, although all the land comprised within it is
divided into parishes, hamlets, vills and liberties.
-----
Footnote 128:
The Gau itself had a mark or boundary. Deut. Rechtsalt. p. 496.
-----
Strictly speaking, the Shire, apart from the units that make it up,
possesses little more land than that which the town-hall, the gaol, or
the hospital may cover. When for the two latter institutions we
substitute the fortress of the king, and a cathedral, which was the
people’s and not the bishop’s, we have as nearly as possible the
Anglosaxon shire-property, and the identity of the two divisions seems
proved. Just as the Gá (_pagus_) contains the Marks (_vicos_), and the
territory of them all, taken together, makes up the territory of the Gá,
so does the Shire contain hamlets, parishes and liberties, and its
territorial expanse is distributed into them. As then the word Mark is
used to denote two distinct things,—a territorial division and a
corporate body,—so does the word Gá or Scír denote both a machinery for
government and a district in which such machinery prevails. The number
of Marks included in a single Gá must have varied partly with the
variations of the land itself, its valleys, hills and meadows: to this
cause may have been added others arising, to some extent, from the
original military organization and distribution, from the personal
character of a leader, or from the peculiar tenets and customs of a
particular Mark. But proximity, and settlement upon the same land, with
the accompanying participation in the advantages of wood and water, are
ever the most active means of uniting men in religious and social
communities; and it is therefore reasonable to believe that the
influence most felt in the arrangement of the several Gás was in fact a
territorial one, depending upon the natural conformation of the country.
Some of the modern shire-divisions of England in all probability have
remained unchanged from the earliest times; so that here and there a now
existent Shire may be identical in territory with an ancient Gá. But it
may be doubted whether this observation can be very extensively applied:
obscure as is the record of our old divisions, what little we know,
favours the supposition that the original Gás were not only more
numerous than our Shires, but that these were not always identical in
their boundaries with those Gás whose locality can be determined.
The policy or pedantry of Norman chroniclers has led them to pass over
in silence the names of the ancient divisions, which nevertheless were
known to them[129]. Wherever they have occasion to refer to our Shires,
they do so by the names they still bear; thus Florence of Worcester and
William of Malmesbury name, to the south of the Humber, Kent, Wiltshire,
Berkshire, Dorset, Sussex, Southampton, Surrey, Somerset, Devonshire,
Cornwall, Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, Cheshire, Derby, Stafford,
Shropshire, Hereford, Oxford, Buckingham, Hertford, Huntingdon, Bedford,
Northampton, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk
and Essex, comprising with Middlesex thirty-two of the shires, out of
forty into which England is now distributed.
-----
Footnote 129:
“Et ne longum faciam, sigillatim enumeratis provinciis quas
vastaverunt, hoc sit ad summam complecti, quod, cum numerentur in
Anglia triginta duo pagi, illi iam sedecim invaserant, quorum nomina
propter barbariem linguae scribere refugio.” Will. Malm., Gest. Reg.
lib. ii. § 165.
-----
Yet even these names and divisions are of great antiquity: Asser, in his
life of Ælfred, mentions by name, Berkshire, Essex, Kent, Surrey,
Somerset, Sussex, Lincoln, Dorset, Devon, Wiltshire and Southampton,
being a third of the whole number: unfortunately, from his work being
composed in Latin and his consequent use of _paga_, we cannot tell how
many of these divisions were considered by him as Scír.
The Saxon Chronicles, during the period anterior to the reign of
Ælfred, seem to know only the old general divisions: thus we have
Cantwara land, Kent[130]; Westseaxan, Súðseaxan, Eástseaxan,
Middleseaxan, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Middlesex: Eástengle, Eastanglia:
Norðanhymbra land, Súðanhymbra land, Myrcna land, Northumberland,
Southumberland, Mercia: Lindisware and Lindisse, Lincolnshire:
Súðrige, Surrey; Wiht, the Isle of Wight; Hwiccas, the Hwiccii in
Gloucestershire and Worcestershire[131]; Merscware, the people of
Romney Marsh: Wilsætan, Dornsætan and Sumorsætan, Wiltshire,
Dorsetshire and Somersetshire[132]. But after the time of Ælfred, the
different manuscripts of the Chronicles usually adopt the word Scír,
in the same places as we do, and with the same meaning. Thus we find,
Bearrucscír, Bedanfordscír, Buccingahámscír, Defenascír, Deórabyscír,
Eoforwícscír, Gleáwanceasterscír, Grantabrycgscír, Hámtúnscír
(Southampton), Hámtúnscír (Northampton), Heortfordscír, Herefordscír,
Huntandúnscír, Legeceasterscír, Lindicolnascír, Oxnafordscír,
Scrobbesbyrigscír (but also Scrobsetan), Snotingahámscír,
Stæffordscír, Wæringwícscír or Wæringscír, Wigraceasterscír, and
Wiltunscír: Middelseaxe, Eástseaxe, Súðseaxe, Súðrige and Cent remain:
Eástengle is not divided into Norfolk and Suffolk. Thus, out of the
thirty-two shires south of the Humber, which Florence and William of
Malmesbury mention, the Chronicles note twenty-six, of which
twenty-one are distinguished as _shires_ by the word scír.
-----
Footnote 130:
The division of Kent into Eást Centingas and West Centingas is
retained by the charters till late in the eleventh century.
Footnote 131:
“Cirrenceaster adiit, qui Britannice Cairceri nominatur, quae est in
meridiana parte Huicciorum.” Asser, Vit. Ælfr. an. 879.
Footnote 132:
Where the country is considered as a territorial division, rather than
with reference to the race that possesses it, instead of sætan or
setan, _the settlers_, we have sæte, _the land settled_; thus
Sumorsæte. So Eástseaxe for Eástseaxan or Eástseaxna land; Cent for
Centingas or Cantware; Lindisse for Lindisware.
-----
In Beda nothing of the kind is to be found: the general scope of his
Ecclesiastical History rendered it unnecessary for him to descend to
minute details, and besides the names of races and kingdoms, he mentions
few divisions of the land. Still he notices the Provincia Huicciorum:
the Middelangli or Angli Mediterranei, a portion of the Mercians: the
Mercii Australes and Aquilonales: the Regio Sudergeona or Surrey: the
Regio Loidis or Elmet near York: the Provincia Meanwarorum, or Hundreds
of East and West Meon in Southampton; the Regio Gyrwiorum in which
Peterborough lies, and distinct from this, the Australes Gyrwii or South
Gyrwians.
The Appendix to the Chronicles of Florence of Worcester supplies us with
one or two names of small districts, not commonly found in other
authors. One of these is the Mercian district of the Westangles or West
Hecan, ruled over by Merewald; in whose country were the Mægsetan, or
people of Hereford, who are sometimes reckoned to the Hwiccas, or
inhabitants of Worcester and Gloucester[133]. Another, the Middleangles,
had its bishopric in Leicester: the Southangles, whose bishop sat at
Dorchester in Oxfordshire, consequently comprised the counties down to
the Thames. The Northangles or Mercians proper had their bishop in
Lichfield. Lastly it has been recorded that Malmesbury in Wiltshire was
in Provincia Septonia[134].
-----
Footnote 133:
“Civitas Wigornia ... et tunc et nunc totius Hwicciae vel Magesetaniae
metropolis extitit famosa.” App. Flor. Wigorn., Episc. Hwicciorum.
Footnote 134:
Vit. Aldh. Whart. Ang. Sacr. ii. 3, and MS. Harl. 356; but the
autograph MS., Ed. Hamilton in Rolls Series, reads rightly _Saxonia_.
-----
But we are not altogether without the means of carrying this enquiry
further. We have a record of the divisions which must have preceded the
distribution of this country into shires: they are unfortunately not
numerous, and the names are generally very difficult to explain: they
have so long become obsolete, that it is now scarcely possible to
identify them. Nor need this cause surprise, when we compare the
oblivion into which they have fallen with the sturdy resistance offered
by the names of the Marks, and their long continuance throughout all the
changes which have befallen our race. The Gás, which were only political
bodies, became readily swallowed up and lost in shires and kingdoms: the
Marks, which had an individual being, and as it were personality of
their own, passed easily from one system of aggregations to another,
without losing anything of their peculiar character: and at a later
period it will be seen that this individuality became perpetuated by the
operation of our ecclesiastical institutions.
A very important document is printed by Sir Henry Spelman in his
Glossary, under the head _Hida_. In its present condition it is
comparatively modern, but many of the entries supply us with information
obviously derived from the most remote antiquity, and these it becomes
proper to take into consideration. The document seems to have been
intended as a guide either to the taxation or the military force of the
kingdom, and professes to give the number of hides of land contained in
the various districts. It runs as follows[135]:
Hydas. Hydas.
Myrcna _continet_ 30000 Lindesfarona 7000
Wokensetna 7000 Súð Gyrwa 600
Westerna 7000 Norð Gyrwa 600
Pecsetna 1200 Eást Wixna 300
Elmedsetna 600 West Wixna 600
Spalda 600 Unecunga 1200
Wigesta 900 Arosetna 600
Herefinna 1200 Fearfinga 300
Sweordora 300 Belmiga 600
Eysla 300 Wiðeringa 600
Hwicca 300 Eást Willa 600
Wihtgara 600 West Willa 600
Noxga gá 5000 Eást Engle 30000
Ohtga gá 2000 Eást Seaxna 7000
Hwynca 7000 Cantwarena 15000
Cilternsetna 4000 Súð Seaxna 7000
Hendrica 3000 West Seaxna 100000[136]
-----
Footnote 135:
I have not adhered strictly to Spelman’s copy, the details of which
are in several cases incorrect, but have collated others where it
seemed necessary.
-----
The entries respecting Mercia, Eastanglia and Wessex could hardly belong
to any period anterior to that of Ælfred. For Mercia previous to the
Danish wars must certainly have contained more than 30,000 hides: while
Eastanglia cannot have reached so large a sum till settled by Guðorm’s
Danes: nor is it easy to believe that Wessex, apart from Kent and
Sussex, should have numbered one hundred thousand in the counties of
Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, with parts of Berkshire, Somerset
and Devon, much before the time of Æðelstán[137]. A remarkable variation
is found between the amounts stated in this list and those given by
Beda, as respects some of the entries: thus Mercia, here valued at
30,000 hides, is reckoned in the Ecclesiastical History at 12,000
only[138]: Hwiccas are reckoned at 300: they contained 600 hides; Wight,
reckoned at 600, contained 1200. On the other hand Kent and Sussex are
retained at the ancient valuation.
-----
Footnote 136:
The total sum thus reckoned is 243,600 hides.
Footnote 137:
About the year 647, Wessex numbered only 9000 hides.
Footnote 138:
The twelve thousand hides counted by Beda (Hist. Eccl. iii. 24) to the
South and North Mercians may however be exclusive of the Westangles
and other parts of the great Mercian kingdom.
-----
It is nevertheless impossible to doubt that the greater number of the
names recorded in this list are genuine, and of the highest antiquity. A
few of them can be recognized in the pages of very early writers: thus
Gyrwa, Elmet, Lindisfaran, Wihtgare, and Hwiccas, are mentioned by Beda
in the eighth century. Some we are still able to identify with modern
districts.
Mercia I imagine to be that portion of Burgred’s kingdom, which upon its
division by the victorious Danes in 874, they committed as a tributary
royalty to Ceólwulf; which subsequently came into the hands of Ælfred,
by the treaty of Wedmor in 878, and was by him erected into a duchy
under his daughter Æðelflǽd, and her husband. Wokensetna may possibly be
the Gá of the Wrocensetan, the people about the Wrekin or hill-country
of Somerset, Dorset and Devon. The Pecsetan appear to be the inhabitants
of the Peakland, or Derbyshire: the Elmedsetan, those of Elmet, the
ancient British Loidis, an independent district in Yorkshire:
Lindisfaran are the people of Lindisse, a portion of Lincolnshire: North
and South Gyrwa were probably in the Mark between Eastanglia and Mercia:
as Peterborough was in North Gyrwa land, this must have comprised a part
of Northamptonshire: and Æðelðrýð derived her right to Ely from her
first husband, a prince of the South Gyrwians; this district is
therefore supposed to have extended over a part of Cambridgeshire and
the isle of Ely. Spalda may be the tract stretching to the north-east of
these, upon the river Welland, in which still lies Spalding. The Hwiccas
occupied Worcestershire and Gloucestershire[139], and perhaps extended
into Herefordshire, to the west of the Severn. The Wihtgaras are the
inhabitants of the Isle of Wight; and the Cilternsetan were the people
who owned the hill and forest land about the Chilterns, verging towards
Oxfordshire, and very probably in the Mark between Mercia and Wessex.
-----
Footnote 139:
Cirencester was in the south of the Hwiccas. Gloucester, Worcester,
and Pershore were all in this district. It was separated from
Wiltshire in Wessex by the Thames, and the ford at Cricklade was a
pass often disputed by the inhabitants of the border-lands.
-----
I fear that it will be impossible to identify any more of these names,
and it does not appear probable that they supply us with anything like a
complete catalogue of the English Gás. Setting aside the fact, that no
notice seems to be taken of Northumberland, save the mention of the
little principality of Elmet, and that the local divisions of
Eastanglia, Kent, Essex, Sussex and Wessex are passed over in the
general names of the kingdoms, we look in vain among them for names
known to us from other sources, and which can hardly have been other
than those of Gás. Thus we have no mention of the Tonsetan, whose
district lay apparently upon the banks of the Severn[140]; of the
Meanware, or land of the Jutes, in Hampshire; of the Mægsetan, or West
Hecan, in Herefordshire; of the Merscware in West Kent; or of the
Gedingas, who occupied a tract in the province of Middlesex[141].
Although it is possible that these divisions are included in some of the
larger units mentioned in our list, they still furnish an argument that
the names of the Gás were much more numerous than they would appear from
the list itself, and that this marks only a period of transition.
-----
Footnote 140:
Cod. Dipl. No. 261.
Footnote 141:
Cod. Dipl. No. 101.
-----
It is clear that when William of Malmesbury mentions thirty-two shires
as making up the whole of England, he intends only England south of the
Humber. The list we have been examining contains thirty-four entries; of
all the names therein recorded, one only can be shown to lie to the
north of that river: from this however it is not unreasonable to suppose
that the whole of England is intended to be comprised in the catalogue.
Even admitting this, we cannot but conclude that these divisions were
more numerous than our shires, seeing that large districts, such as
Mercia, Wessex and Eastanglia, are entered only under one general head
respectively.
The origin of the Gá in the federal union of two or more Marks is
natural, and must be referred to periods far anterior to any historical
record: that of the division into Shires, as well as the period at which
this arose, are less easily determined. But we have evidence that some
division into shires was known in Wessex as early as the end of the
seventh or beginning of the eighth century, since Ini provides for the
case where a plaintiff cannot obtain justice from his shireman or
judge[142]; and the same prince declares that if an ealdorman compounds
a felony, he shall forfeit his shire[143]; while he further enacts that
no man shall secretly withdraw from his lord into another shire[144]. As
it will be shown hereafter that a territorial jurisdiction is
inseparably connected with the rank of a duke or ealdorman, I take the
appearance of these officers in Mercia, during the same early period, to
be evidence of the existence of a similar division there. Its cause
appears to me to lie in the consolidation of the royal power. As long as
independent associations of freemen were enabled to maintain their
natural liberties, to administer their own affairs undisturbed by the
power of strangers, and by means of their own private alliances to
defend their territories and their rights, the old division into Gás
might continue to exist. But the centralization of power in the hands of
the king implies a more artificial system. It is more convenient for
judicial and administrative purposes, more profitable, and more safe for
the ruler, to have districts governed by his own officers, and in which
a territorial unity shall supersede the old bonds of kinsmanship:
centralization is hardly compatible with family tradition. The members
of the Gá met as associated freemen, under the guidance of their own
natural leaders, and formed a substantive unit or small state, which
might, or might not, stand in relations of amity to similar states. The
Shire was a political division, presided over by an appointed officer,
forming part only of a general system, and no longer endowed with the
high political rights of self-government, in their fullest extent. I can
imagine the Gá, but certainly not the Shire, declaring war against a
neighbour. As long as the Gá could maintain itself as a little republic,
principality, or even kingdom, it might exist unscathed: but as the
smaller kings were rooted out, their lands and people incorporated with
larger unions, and powerful monarchies rose upon their ruins, it is
natural that a system of districts should arise, based entirely upon a
territorial division. Such districts, without peculiar, individual
character of their own, or principle of internal cohesion, must have
appeared less dangerous to usurpation than the ancient gentile
aggregations.
-----
Footnote 142:
Ini, § 8. Thorpe, i. 106.
Footnote 143:
Ini, § 36. Thorpe, i. 124.
Footnote 144:
Ini, § 39. Thorpe, i. 126.
-----