becomes the nized in laws. heretofore explained, the most important outcome of the comitatus was the relation of lord and man, a relation at first purely personal, and not necessarily connected with the holding of land. As the smaller kingdoms grew into a sin- The king gle kingdom, and as the king of the one united kingdom lord of his became the king of the whole nation, the relation of lord and people, — man widened into the principle that the king was the lord or patron of his people. In the legislation of Ælfred the rela- so recogtion existing between the king and his subjects is distinctly the early recognized as that between lord and man: "If any one plot against the king's life, of himself or by harboring of exiles, or of his men, let him be liable in his life and in all that he has. If he desire to prove himself true, let him do so according to the king's wergild. So also we ordain for all degrees, whether eorl or ceorl. He who plots against his lord's life, let him be liable in his life to him and in all that he has, or let him prove himself true according to his lord's wer." 2 The same principle is restated in the laws of Eadward the Elder, and with greater emphasis in those of his son Eadmund.* These enactments fix the time of the transition from the old to the new relation. And as the king of the nation becomes the The national peace lord and patron of his people, the national peace, which from becomes the beginning was under his protection, becomes the king's the king's peace, enforcible by his personal servants.6 By imperceptible degrees the nation is merged in the person of the king, who is finally regarded as the source of all peace and law, which are supposed to die with him, and to rise again with the advent of his successor. "The sovereign was the foun- The king tain of justice; therefore the stream ceased to flow when the the source well-spring was covered by the tomb. The judicial bench of justice. vacant, all tribunals closed. Such was the ancient doctrine, a doctrine still recognized in Anglo-Norman England.” 7 peace. becomes land be comes terra regis. And as the idea gained ground that the king of the whole nation was the lord of the whole people, the correlative idea developed that the folkland, which originally belonged to the people in their collective capacity, was the property of the The folk king. It has been said by a great German writer that "folcland rests on the principle in the constitution that royal and public are not the same thing; that the king, not alone, but only at the head of the whole body of the people, represents the public power; that, therefore, the public objects are the objects of all, and the public property the property of all." 2 In primitive times the distinction was plainly drawn between the lands which the king owned as a private individual — the lands which were annexed to the crown, the royal demesne— and the folklands, the land of the people. The king was first permitted to make grants out of the folkland to his followers and friends, with the counsel and consent of the witan. But after the time of Elfred the charters contain less and less frequently the clause expressing the consent of the witan, who gradually sink into the position of mere witnesses of the grant.5 In this way the people's land begins to be spoken of as the king's folkland; and it finally becomes virtually the land of the king, undistinguishable from the royal demesne. In this way the actual ownership of the folkland, and a sort of suzerainty over the rest of the land of the country, becomes vested in the king." Growth of territorial lordships. By the force of the same principle through which the king changed his relation to the folkland, the king's thegns and the great ecclesiastical persons and bodies changed their relations to the waste lands which had origininally belonged to the cultivating groups composing the village-communities or townships. The history of this "process of feudalization" has already been drawn out. As population increased, and as the primitive communal system became inadequate to its necessities, landless men settled down upon the estates of all the great proprietors, and organized thereon village-communities, whose general character was identical with that of the free communities, with one serious exception, the title to the land occupied by the dependent community was vested not in itself, but in the lord. As the principle of lord and The deman grew and widened, the free communities were gradually village-compendent reduced to a dependent condition. Through various pro- munity cesses the houselands and the arable of the once free townsmen became vested in a single lord, and in that event the waste or common lands passed as an incident. In this way the waste of the once free townsmen became the lord's waste, while the townsmen became his tenants.5 After the Con- becomes quest, the dependent township appears as the manor of the after the lord; the thegns represent all those who appear as tenants in capite; the free holders of the tenemental lands correspond in the main to the free heads of households composing the old village-communities; while those who originally occupied the lord's domain constitute the class of tenants whose tenures were in their origin servile. Both classes of tenants, the free and the servile, were necessary to the existence of the manorial group,10 which the lord held together through the agency of the court baron. Out of the relation of princeps and comes, originally embodied in the comitatus, thus grew the relation of lord and man, a relation which at first was nerios vulgo vocamus," Ordericus Vi- 7 Digby, p. 30; Stubbs, Const. Hist., • Maine, Village-Com., p. 137. 10 Ibid., p. 134. If all the lands were the manor not necessarily connected with the holding of land. But this relation of lord and man, of king and his thegns, became intimately connected with the holding of land when the thegnhood developed in England into a territorial nobility. And the new relation which thus grew up between the king and his thegns was naturally reproduced on a smaller scale between the thegns and the great ecclesiastical persons and their dependents.1 As yet there is no organized feudalism; as yet there is no distinct conception of the relation of All the ele superior lord, mesne lord, and tenant; but the elements of all these relations exist, ready to be worked into that systeexist before matic feudal jurisprudence for which the Norman conquest ments of feudalism the Con quest. The move personal to territorial prepared the way.2 In the foregoing account of the growth of kingship is outment from lined the transition through which the primitive Teutonic system passed while the tribal communities, in which the settlers originally grouped themselves in Britain, were being welded into a single consolidated kingdom. The general organiza tion. nature of the transition has been described as a movement from personal to territorial organization,3- from a state of things in which personal freedom and political right were the dominant ideas, to a state of things in which these ideas have become bound up with and subservient to the relations arising out of the possession of land. In the primitive system the two hostile elements are present from the very beginning; the free, self-governing community, and the king or other lord, and his personal following. In the "process of community feudalization" through which the free Teutonic communities through pass, the king and the thegnhood gain the mastery and cess of feu- become the dominant powers in the constitution. The dalization." primitive conception of sovereign power, as originally embodied in the nation, in a great measure passes out of view, -the sovereignty of the nation becomes merged in its chief. The free passes "the pro The king becomes the lord and patron of his people; the folkland becomes virtually the king's land; the national peace becomes the king's peace; the justice of the hundred and the folk becomes the king's justice; the national officers become the king's officers; and the national assembly - the witan - becomes more and more the king's council. Every stage in the transition from the old to the new system is marked by an advance in the kingly power, and by a decrease of independence upon the part of local communities.2 extent of It is now possible to estimate, in a general way, the nature Nature and and extent of the advance made by the royal power during the royal the centuries in which the primitive tribal settlements were authority. gradually consolidated in a single state. The growth of OldEnglish royalty reached its highest point in the person of Eadgar, who was not only the sole and immediate king of all Eadgar. the English, but also the suzerain lord of all the neighboring Celtic princes, the emperor of the whole isle of Britain. A king of the consolidated kingdom, although hedged in by many constitutional restrictions, certainly occupied a position of great power and privilege. Although he could perform no important act of government without the consent of the national assembly, still he was no mere puppet in their hands, for the assembly was equally powerless to perform any act without his concurrence. Although in strict theory the king was only one of the people, and as his title implied their child and not their father, and dependent upon their election for his royalty, still he was the noblest of the people, and at the head of the state. The person of the king was guarded The king's not only by the high price set upon his life as a person of wergild. royal blood, the wergild payable to his family in the event of his violent death, but it was also guarded by an equal amount, which was the price of his royalty, the cynebot, the fine due at the same time to his people. The king's revenues which king in everything that is done, and On the origin of the word king, Kemble, Saxons in Eng., vol. ii. p. |