PARLIAMENT 303
people to its deliberations. In the town-moot the whole body of freemen and cultivators of the folk-lands met freely under a spreading oak, or on the village green; in the hundred-moot, or shire-gemót, deputies from neighbouring communities could readily find a place; but all was changed in the wider council of a kingdom. When there were many kingdoms, distance obstructed any general gathering of the commons; and in the wider area of England such a gathering became impossible. Centuries were yet to pass before this obstacle was to be overcome by representation; but, in the meantime, the local institutions of the Anglo-Saxons were not without their influence upon the central council. The self-government of a free people informed the bishops, ealdormen, ceorls, and thegns who dwelt among them of their interests and needs, their sufferings and their wrongs; and, while the popular forces were increasing with an advancing society, they grew more potential in the councils of their rulers. Some writers, naturally sympathizing with every tradition of English liberty, have discovered proofs of an earlier representation; but popular franchises are now too firmly established to need support from doubtful traces of antiquity.
Another circumstance must not be overlooked in estimating the political influence of the people in Anglo-Saxon times. For five centuries the country was convulsed with incessant wars – wars with the Britons, whom the invaders were driving from their homes, wars between the several kingdoms, wars with the Welsh, wars with the Picts, wars with the Danes. How could the people continue to assert their civil rights amid the clash of arms and a frequent change of masters? The warrior-kings and their armed followers were rulers in the land which they had conquered.
At the same time the unsettled condition of the country repressed the social advancement of its people. Agriculture could not prosper when the farm of the husbandman too often became a battlefield. Trade could not be extended without security to property and industry. Under such conditions the great body of the people continued as peasants, handicraftsmen, and slaves. The time had not yet come when they could make their voice heard in the councils of the state.
The Norman Conquest. – The Anglo-Saxon polity was suddenly overthrown by the Norman Conquest. A stern foreign king had seized the crown, and was prepared to rule his conquered realm by the sword. He brought with him the absolutist principles of Continental rulers, and the advanced feudal system of France and Normandy. Feudalism had been slowly gaining ground under the Saxon kings, and now it was firmly established as a military organization. William the Conqueror at once rewarded his warlike barons and followers with enormous grants of land. The Saxon landowners and peasants were despoiled, and the invaders settled in their homesteads. The king claimed the broad lands of England as his own, by right of conquest; and when he allowed his warriors to share the spoil he attached the strict condition of military service in return for every grant of land. An effective army of occupation of all ranks was thus quartered upon every province throughout the realm. England was held by the sword; a foreign king, foreign nobles, and a foreign soldiery were in possession of the soil, and swore fealty to their master, from whom they held it. Saxon bishops were deposed, and foreign prelates appointed to rule over the English Church. Instead of calling a national witenagemót, the king took counsel with the officers of his state and household, the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and knights by whom he was pleased to surround himself. Some of the forms of a national council were indeed maintained, and its counsel and consent were proclaimed in the making of laws; but, in truth, the king was absolute.
Such a revolution seemed fatal to the liberties and ancient customs of Saxon England. What power could withstand the harsh conqueror? But the indestructible elements of English society prevailed over the sword. The king grasped, in his own hands, the higher administration and judicature of the realm; but he continued the old local courts of the hundred and the shire, which had been the basis of Saxon freedom. The Norman polity was otherwise destined to favour the liberties of the people, through agencies which had been designed to crush them. The powerful nobles, whom William and his successors exalted, became formidable rivals of the crown itself; while ambitious barons were in their turn held in check by a jealous and exacting church. The ruling powers, if combined, would have reduced the people to slavery; but their divisions proved a continual source of weakness. In the meantime the strong rule of the Normans, bitter as it was to Englishmen, repressed intestine wars and the disorders of a divided realm. Civil justice was fairly administered. When the spoils of the conquerors had been secured, the rights of property were protected, industry and trade were left free, and the occupation of the soil by foreigners drove numbers of landowners and freemen into the towns, where they prospered as merchants, traders, and artificers, and collected thriving populations of townsmen. Meanwhile, foreign rulers having brought England into closer relations with the Continent, its commerce was extended to distant lands, ports and shipping were encouraged, and English traders were at once enriched and enlightened. Hence new classes of society were growing, who were eventually to become the commons of England.
The Crown, the Barons, the Church, and the People. – While these social changes were steadily advancing, the barons were already preparing the way for the assertion of popular rights. Ambitious, turbulent, and grasping, they were constantly at issue with the crown. Enjoying vast estates and great commands, and sharing with the prelates the government of the state, as members of the king's council, they were ever ready to raise the standard of revolt. The king could always count upon barons faithful to his cause, but he also appealed for aid to the church and the people. The baronage was thus broken by insurrections, and decimated by civil wars, while the value of popular alliances was revealed. The power of the people was ever increasing, while their oppressors were being struck down. The population of the country was still Saxon; they had been subdued, but had not been driven forth from the land, like the Britons in former invasions. The English language was still the common speech of the people; and Norman blood was being mingled with the broader stream of Saxon life. A continuous nationality was thus preserved, and was outgrowing the foreign element.
The crown was weakened by disputed successions and foreign wars, and the baronage by the blood-stained fields of civil warfare; while both in turn looked to the people in their troubles. Meanwhile the church was struggling, alike against the crown and the barons, in defence of its ecclesiastical privileges and temporal possessions. Its clergy were brought by their spiritual ministrations into close relations with the people, and their culture contributed to the intellectual growth of English society. When William Rufus was threatened by his armed barons, he took counsel with Archbishop Lanfranc, and promised good laws and justice to the people. His promises were broken; but, like later charters, as lightly set aside, they
