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Growth of the feudal system — Later Carlovingians without power — The
feudal vassals become independent — Countsof Paris — Hugh Capet crowned
king of the French — Settlement of the Normans in France — Old Britain;
what remains of Ante-Roman Britain — Language, Institutions — The
Normans in France — Their change of manners when settled — Readily adopt
feudalism and the privileges of seignory — The Romans in Britain — Their
civilization — Roman villas in Britain — Roman towns, roads, bridges —
Britain Christianized — Roman colonization gave no independence or
self-government — Roman civilization obliterated — The Saxons in Britain
— Hengist and Horsa apocryphal — Jutes — Angles — Saxons — Other Teutons
— Frisians — King Arthur the only British hero — Anglo-Saxon
institutions — King — Hereditary nobility, Thane, Alderman — Churl —
Serf — Property of the soil — Folcland — Bocland — Subdivisions and
meetings — Scir-gemot — Great assembly of the nation — Christianity
restored — Wholesale conversions — Edwin of Northumbria — Caefi, the
high priest — Rome endeavours to win over the British Bishops — In vain
— Saxon missionaries on the Continent — Alfred — Cnut — The Danes and
English — The Norman conquest — The Normans in England — Composition of
the army of invasion — Causes of its success — Why the Anglo-Saxon
language and institutions prevailed over those of the conquerors.
It was vain to hope that
any other hand could wield the sceptre of the great emperor; and in the
grasp of his feeble and divided successors, his power was rapidly
dissipated. But though his kingdom fell to pieces, the effects of his
institutions, the spirit of a reign of half a century, directed to the
restoration of order and establishment of law, were not altogether lost to
the world.
The unhappy system of
partition of the succession, was the cause of civil war and unnatural
dissension immediately upon the death of Charlemagne. The reign of his
son, Louis le Debonnaire, presents the revolting spectacle of a continual
struggle between the sons and the father, which resulted in the
establishment of independent kingdoms, fluctuating so constantly in their
dynasty and their territories, that it would serve but little purpose to
enumerate their names. Out of the wrecks of Charlemagne's great Christian
empire arose by slow degrees the kingdom and empire of Germany, the
kingdom of France, the kingdoms of the Burgundies and Provence.
After the deposition of
Charles the Fat, the legitimate son of Charlemagne, and the death of
Arnulph, an illegitimate descendant of the great Emperor, the German
people, or in other words the five duchies of the Franks, the Swabians,
the Bavarians, the Saxons, and the Lorrainers, chose for their emperor,
Conrad of Franconia, who was succeeded by Henry the Fowler, Duke of
Saxony, and the German throne was occupied by four generations in
succession of that Saxon family—a great gain to the cause of civilization,
and a proof that the desire of union and steady government planted by
Charlemagne had not yet died.
During the confusion of
that distracted period, the feudal institutions, which were in their
infancy under Charlemagne, grew and spread over Europe with a rapidity
that would be marvellous, if we did not consider how singularly adapted
the system was, I had almost said how natural, to the circumstances of the
dominant tribes in their new settlements. If you picture to yourself a
victorious army, which has just won a province in a battle. The general is
the first divider of the land. He portions it out among his captains. Each
of them subdivides his portion among his subaltern officers. But the
country, though won, is not secure. Each captain holds his land,
therefore, subject to being summoned by the general, to do service against
the enemy in its defence. He makes the same compact with his subalterns,
now become his vassals ; and you have already the rude outline of
feudalism. I shall have an opportunity of entering into some of its
details in our own country hereafter.
Charles the Simple, the
grandson of Charles the Fat, and the undoubted male representative of
Charlemagne, was acknowledged as king over the country now taking the name
of France, in the end of the ninth century, and his descendants continued
titular kings till 987. But they were kings in name only, for Brittany,
Aquitaine or Guienne, Provence, uniting a part of the ancient kingdom of
the Burgundians, had each secured a sovereign independence; and the great
feudal vassals, the Counts of Flanders, Champagne, Normandy, Burgundy,
Nivernois, the Duke of Gas-cony, the Counts of Anjou, Ponthieu, and
Verman-dois, the Viscount of Bourge, the Lords of Bourbon and Couci,
exercised all the rights of independent sovereigns, and scarcely, perhaps,
acknowledged the king as their feudal superior; so that the kingdom of the
Gallo-Franks, or France, as it now began to be called, was limited by the
Loire, the Meuse, the Scheldt, and the frontier of Brittany.
In the meantime, an
influence was springing up, similar to that upon which the Carlovingian
power was at first founded, and the Counts of Paris and Orleans, after
repeatedly controlling, if not filling, the throne, at length took the
place of the descendants of Charlemagne. Hugh Capet was crowned at Rheims,
King of the French, and handing down his crown to his descendants, gave
somewhat of stability to the French monarchy.
The powerlessness of the
degenerate descendants of Charlemagne had encouraged the settlement of the
Northmen, first on the coast, and afterwards in the interior of France:
for during the reign of the great Emperor, though that bold and
adventurous people had already formed a permanent settlement in England,
in France they were only known as the pirate scourges of the coasts. It is
surprising how quickly the Northmen adopted the manners and language of
the people among whom they had settled as masters. It was the end of the
ninth century when the pirate band ascended the Seine. When the envoys of
the French king wished to parley with those companions of Rollo or "Hrolf
the ganger," who were making dangerous encroachments on his territory,
they approached their camp from the opposite side of the river Eure —
"Ho!" cried they, "what is your chief's name?" "We have no chief, we are
all equal," replied the Northmen. "Why are you come into this country, and
what do you want here?" "To drive out the inhabitants," said they, "or to
subdue them, and make us a country to dwell in." On that occasion the
opposite parties required an interpreter to communicate, and they found a
fit one in the famous Hasting, a native of Champagne, who in his youth had
joined a party of Northern pirates, and made himself a terrible renown as
their leader in England and all over Europe, and afterwards struck a peace
with the government of France, submitted to be baptized, and obtained the
county of Chartres.
A few years afterwards,
when that same colony has wrested from Charles the Simple, the direct
descendant of Charlemagne, one of his greatest provinces, observe how
their conduct has changed. Now they allow their leader Rollo to take the
hereditary Seignory, and he consents to become the vassal of the French
king. As part of the treaty, and as plain matter of compact, the new
French duke and his followers, now his vassals, agree to receive baptism.
A few years more, and Rollo, the old sea-king, pirate, and robber, has
settled down into the peaceful and prudent Duke of Normandy. He was
particularly distinguished as a great Justicer, and the severe represser
of all wandering robbers. Only one small body of the Scandinavian
sea-kings had some remaining scruples about baptism, and these were
allowed to settle by themselves, round Bayeux, on the Eure, where their
little colony, for a few generations, preserved some traces of the old
Norse faith and manners. The romance of "Rollo" makes them respond to the
war-cry of the Norman chivalry — "Dieu aide!" (God to our help) — by their
old country shout of "Thor aide!"
It was easier for the body
of the Normans to adopt the system of vassalage and feudal tenures, which,
while it placed a lord over them, placed under them the whole natives of
the land as their vassals, tenants and serfs. It was with them as with the
Franks of old. Every born Norman was esteemed a gentleman. He was free
from tax and toll; privileged to kill the game of his forests and the fish
of his rivers; privileged to wear arms, and to ride on horseback;
privileged to exact service, and lord almost of the life and goods of the
race whom the fortune of war had degraded into the tillers of his lands.
It thus came to pass, that in an incredibly short space of time, the
descendants of the Northmen had adopted the language of Northern France,
and all its feudal customs, as well as the system of land tenures, even to
an extreme rigour; and, before the period of the conquest of England —
only 160 years after their arrival in France as rough and landless
Scandinavian pirates, "who knew no country, owned no lord," — they had
adopted territorial styles of surname from their baronial chateaus in
Normandy, practised the knightly fashions then coming into observance, and
affected all the forms and language of infant chivalry.
I have hitherto avoided
speaking of the affairs of Britain. During the times we have been passing
under review, our island was little mixed up in the politics of
Continental Europe. It was not, however, without events of great
importance in the history of nations, and of paramount interest to us.
Britain had already gone through two great revolutions, involving changes
of the dominant race of its inhabitants.
Of the elements of old
British society, preserved under the Romans, we learn very little from the
Latin writers; and the British accounts have reached us in a form modern
and corrupted. In the Lowlands, or large eastern part of Britain, the
ancient language probably disappeared early, and has now left no traces.
The rivers and mountains, indeed, those eternal features of nature, have
preserved their primitive names; and we can count a few places, rare
exceptions, still called as they were known to the adventurous merchant
before the Roman conquest. We have the Isle of Wight, not much changed
from that which the Romans Latinized into Veda; Dover, which they called
Dubris; Kent bore the same name two thousand years ago ; and that ancient
mart on the Thames, which the Romans tried to re-christen Augusta, has
still preserved its more ancient name of London.
Beyond the mountains, and
generally on the western side of the island, this is different. Cornwall
was called Bretland, or land of Britons, so late as the twelfth century,
by the Norse; and until the middle of the sixteenth century, the primitive
British or Logrian tongue was spoken there. In Man, it remained longer. In
Wales, the Romans never had much footing, and there the British language
has kept a stubborn hold. It was the same within time of record in
Galloway; and I need not tell you, that beyond the Grampians, the native
people preserve their native language.
Somewhat may perhaps be
traced of the remains of British institutions as well as language; but it
is a difficult and doubtful investigation, and I would only call your
attention to that, which is said to be a vestige of ancient British
custom, the law of Gavelkind, by which the sons or brothers inherit land
equally, without distinction of seniority, of which there are still traces
in Wales, in Kent, and in some parts of Northumberland.
The Romans were in Britain
about five hundred years. They found it a thickly-peopled and fertile
country. The natives of the better part of the island soon amalgamated
with them, and enjoyed the protection and civilization that every where
accompanied the Roman arms. Before they left it, there were forty-six
military stations, and twenty-eight cities of consequence, from Inverness
and Perth, to that London, which Tacitus describes as a port famous for
its number of merchants and extent of trade. [Londinum copia negoliatorum
el commeatunm maxime celebre. — Tacit. An. xiv. 33.] The military force
required for the defence of the colony amounted, in general, to 20,000
foot and 1700 horse, and these were not birds of passage, like the troops
in our colonies. The sixth legion remained at York as its head quarters
for nearly three hundred years. The soil of the country all round is found
full of their remains—from statues and altars, down to their domestic
furniture, and pottery manufactured with their own stamp (Legio VI.) Its
natural fertility and Roman cultivation, soon made Britain the granary of
the northern provinces of the empire. The rich country required an immense
organization of civilians, magistrates, and tax-gatherers. Its importance
as a military station, and, perhaps, the pleasantness of the land, made it
a favourite residence of several of the later emperors. Adrian and Severus,
Geta and Caracalla, were amongst them; Constantine was born at York, and
the Emperor Constantius Chlorus lived and died in Britain.
I do not know that there is
anything that gives us a more startling insight into Roman life in
Britain, than the villas which have been lately disinterred in several
parts of England. One of these, which I have fresh in my recollection,
though I visited it many years ago, is in Oxfordshire, upon a haugh more
than half surrounded by a little stream, the opposite bank of which, still
covered with immemorial copse, defends it from the north and east. The
walls can be perfectly traced, and show that the buildings, which never
exceeded one storey high above ground, surrounded a small court open to
the southern sun. It is for the fancy of the visitor to allot the
different apartments, for a library, for banqueting-rooms, and family
purposes. All of them were floored with tesselated pavements, of many
colours and the most elegant designs, while some were spacious enough to
have been employed for the exercises which formed so favourite a part of
ancient life. One large room spoke its own history, from the furnace
placed below, and innumerable flues marked only alternately with smoke,
surrounding a bath large enough for swimming. The water was supplied
through a leaden pipe, and, guided by its direction, we traced it to its
source, some hundred yards off, in a spring deep and cold and pure as
Blandusia. The master of the villa might hunt the boar and the wild bull
in the forest which still surrounds that little valley; he might luxuriate
beside the cool fountain, upon turf greener than ever adorned the banks of
the Anio. Undoubtedly he was a person of taste and cultivation; and the
number of similar rural retreats of the Romans through England, speaks a
high degree of security and enjoyment, and of the blessings of
civilization; especially when we consider, that with the Romans, country
life was the exception, and their real home was in cities. We might argue
as much from those stupendous roads, which every where intersect the Roman
province, if it were not, that these might be chiefly required for
maintaining the military communication through the country. The venerable
Bede mentions the Roman towns, lighthouses, roads and bridges, as still
existing in his time, or the beginning of the eighth century.
But far beyond all the rest
for the civilization of Britain, the Roman occupation was the means of
introducing into our country the Christian faith. The fostering care of
Constantine was prominently felt in Britain. The old places of
superstitious worship, whether Roman or British, were consecrated to the
service of a purer faith. Out of Bangor, supposed to have been a place of
Druidical worship, arose the most ancient of British churches and
monasteries, while a temple of Apollo on the bank of the Thames served as
the foundation of the Church, which afterwards became the Abbey Church of
St. Peter of Westminster; and the Temple of Diana of London, gave place to
St. Paul's Cathedral. Three British bishops [Eborius of York, Restitutus
of London, and Adelphius of Lincoln.] attended the first council of Aries;
and there is reason to believe that there were, even at that period, two
other bishops in Britain, one of whom was in Wales and the other in
Scotland. In like manner Britain sent three bishops to the council of
Ariminum in 359.
The radical defect of Roman
colonisation outweighed in the end all those advantages which Britain had
derived from her government. She civilized, and perhaps instructed the
poor Britons. She taught them to wear clothes instead of the skins of
their sheep; refined and cultivated them with education and religion. But
Rome withheld from her colonists altogether the employments, the
institutions, the organization, which might have prepared them for acting
with unity, when forced to act independently. The Roman Code, admirable as
it is, knows no higher sanction than — placet principi. It was the policy
of Rome, that the subject world should look to her as its centre and sole
point of binding attraction, and when the evil days came, and she was
obliged to gather in her armies for her own protection, there was no head
to guide, no self-reliance, no experience or energy, in the deserted
colony : liberty became helplessness ; independence anarchy; and the
fabric fell at once to pieces before the onslaught of the more vigorous
barbarians.
The Romans had left Britain
finally but little before the middle of the fifth century. That was the
era of the famous message of the poor Britons to the Consul Aetius — "The
barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea to the barbarians." In a century
and a half afterwards, the polished language which had been for
generations the common tongue, both of the settlers and of the natives,
had entirely disappeared. Christianity was forgotten within all that had
been the Roman province of Britain, and preserved a faint and struggling
existence only in the fastnesses of Wales and Scotland. All the
refinements and decencies of life, science, literature, and the arts, sunk
at once before the energy and courage of a barbarous enemy. The Britons
themselves sunk into a race of cultivators, little removed from hewers of
wood and drawers of water, except the few who preserved their independence
under the Welsh mountains, or in their aboriginal seats of Gaulish
Brittany.
The people called Saxons,
had become known in history as early as the second century. They then
inhabited the islands at the mouth of the Elbe, and perhaps Holstein and
Hadeln, from whence they infested the northern seas as pirates, and made
themselves so formidable, that a high military officer of the Roman empire
was appointed for repressing them, and bore the title of "Count of the
Saxon shore in the end of the third century. Two other nations,
similar in habits, and speaking dialects of the same tongue, were from the
earliest time associated with them, and, indeed, pass continually under
the common name of Saxons. These were the Angles, from the district of
Angeln, now insignificant, but formerly of greater extent, and including
Sleswic; and the Jutes, who occupied the northern part of that peninsula,
whose coast and islands are so singularly adapted for the purposes of
piracy.
I do not think it necessary
to detain you to discuss the exact manner and time of the arrival of those
new masters in Britain. The popular story of Vortigern, King of the
Britons, begging for Saxon assistance, and the sudden and complete success
of Hengist and Horsa, are now deservedly viewed with suspicion. The names
of these leaders are not mentioned by any writer for nearly three
centuries after their supposed era, in connection with the romantic story
in which they are now made to figure so prominently; and there is reason
to believe, that the Saxon pirates had been making attacks, and even
settlements, along the eastern coast of Scotland and England, before
Britain was left unprotected by the armies of Rome. After that, for
certain, invasions were made rapidly and almost simultaneously by the
piratical nations; and in a hundred and fifty years, all that had been
Roman of our island had passed under the power of the new invaders. The
gradual but constant progress made during that time, in the occupation of
many parts of Britain by independent hordes of various races, looks less
like a conquest than a progressive usurpation of the British territory.
The Jutes colonized Kent
only, a county still remarkable for its peculiar customs, and for what, on
a larger scale, might be called its nationality. It alone has a
subdivision into six districts, called Lathes, a word unknown in the rest
of England, and which appears to be connected with the lething of the
Jutish law, in which it means a military expedition, or perhaps the
district which might be summoned for it.
The great kingdom of
Northumberland, and those of East Anglia and Mercia, that is, the whole of
England north of the counties of Hertford, Northampton, and Warwick, was
occupied by the Angles. If you examine the maps, or the admirable county
histories of that great territory, you will find that the division of
counties was into Wapentakes, and not into hundreds, and you will observe
many of the names of towns beginning and ending in kirk, while minster is
the southern word, and many ending in by (though this termination was
given long afterwards by the Danes in Derby).
The remainder of Roman
Britain fell to the Saxons, who used the division of Hundreds, instead of
the Anglian Wapentakes.
Such I believe to have been
the general outline of the settlement of Britain, as gathered from the
historians, to whom we owe the little information we have of that time—the
laws and customs subsequently found in observance in each district—and the
dialects of the three nations, as detected in the written and spoken
language of the inhabitants. But I need hardly warn you against expecting
precision in tracing the settlements of peoples so rude, so much
intermingled from their piratical habits, and speaking a language so
nearly identical. There is no doubt, moreover, that besides these leading
tribes, others of the Teutonic peoples, and especially many Frisians,
joined in the great adventure.
The only hero, whose deeds
were memorable enough to be handed down on the side of the Britons, is
King Arthur, whose gallant share in the last struggle of his countrymen
has associated his name in the traditions of the country, from Cornwall to
our own Strathmore. While the old lays of the bards of Wales and Brittany
adopted him as their hero, it happened that the first romances of northern
chivalry were built upon that foundation, and this accident has brought it
about, that king Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table are celebrated
in countries and languages to which his was a stranger, and have become
the heroes, not of Britain, but of Christian chivalry.
The Saxons of the
Continent, the Frisians and the Germanic races who settled in Britain, had
no kings according to our sense of the word; [Bede, 5-10] and it was the
necessity of a leader in their invasions that induced them to submit to a
commander, whom they called Heretoga — army leader — or Ealdorman — a word
which has now assumed a more peaceful meaning. The chief military leader
of the horde became in time the chief of the settled colony, and borrowed
from his Germanic home the sacred appellation of Son of the Nation,
which, in Saxon, became Cyning, now King. The king was
elective within the range of certain noble families, and whatever
preference there might be for sons of a deceased sovereign, the instances
are innumerable in which the brothers, as more fit for the management of
affairs, were chosen to the exclusion of sons — of which the great Alfred
is an example; and the succession of the younger AEtheling, or king's son,
is not unfrequent in preference to his elder brother. An affectation
prevailed among the later Saxons, of copying the high-sounding titles of
the emperors of the East and West, as Augustus, Basileus. [So
Edgar, King of Scots, styles himself on his seal—Scotorum basileus.]
The Anglo-Saxon Queen (you
are probably aware that queen means wife) was a person of great
importance. She was to be chosen from a noble family, and was consecrated
and crowned as solemnly as the king, and she was seated beside him in the
hall at feasts.
A hereditary nobility is
plainly to be traced, in the earlier times asserting its descent from
Woden, and afterwards, contented with pushing its pedigree to the Military
or the Sea-kings. These were the AEthelings. The leader of a tribe in
primitive times was the man, the most venerable for age, and hence
Ealdorman was the style of a chief of a great district. This office or
dignity was bestowed by decree of the assembly of the people; but in
effect and practice, became nearly hereditary. His duty was to lead the
district in war, and to govern it in peace, and he had for his support,
lands appertaining to the office, and a third of the fines and the profits
of the courts, and of the other revenues of the king.
Next in rank were the
Gesiths, or Thanes, and although these, like the Ealdormen, acquired their
rank by service, there cannot be much doubt that it gradually became
hereditary. Indeed the settled state of the country, and the increase of
the Saxon population, and more than either, the influence of the Christian
clergy, gradually led to the landed property becoming hereditary, and
converted nobility by service, into nobility by birth.
Of those with no claim to
nobility was the Saxon churl, or freeman, the native Briton (Wealh,
literally a foreigner, a Welshman), who might be free and even might hold
property; but was of inferior rank and value, according to that most
curious system of discrimination, by which the injuries done to a man's
person were estimated according to his rank.
The serf (theow, esn), was
the lowest class in the Saxon society. They are supposed to have been the
descendants of Roman slaves and of the native Britons. The most remarkable
circumstance connected with them, is their unequal distribution and the
smallness of their number. At the time of the census of Doomsday, their
whole number was little more than twenty-five thousand. They were most
numerous in the districts, where the British population maintained itself
the longest. In Gloucestershire, for instance, there was one slave to
every third freeman, and in Cornwall, Devon and Staffordshire, they were
as one to five. In the Saxon States and in Kent, the serfs constituted a
tenth of the population, and it is exceedingly remarkable, that in the
shires of Lincoln, Huntingdon and Rutland, and in the great county of
York, not a single slave is registered, and in the neighbouring counties,
only a very small number, as in Nottingham, where they appear in the
proportion of one to two hundred and fifteen.
The land at its first
conquest, and perhaps for some short time afterwards, belonged to the
people in common, and it was upon this theory that their system of land
rights was founded. The Folcland, or public land, might, however,
be occupied in common, or parcelled out to individuals. It could not be
alienated in perpetuity, but only for a term or years, or for life, after
which it returned to the public. Bocland, or charter-land, was such
as was severed by an act of the government, that is, by the king, with the
consent of his parliament or witan, from the public land, and so converted
into an estate of perpetual inheritance. The former tenure was loaded with
services and rents, from which the latter was free.
Many of the shires of
England [Kent, Sussex, Essex, Surrey, Norfolk, Suffolk, Devon, and
Cambria.] were formed out of the petty kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons;
others from ancient bishoprics—which takes place in those shires that bear
the name of their episcopal sees. [Durham, York, Lincoln, Chester,
Worcester, Hereford, Oxford.] The shire was divided into hundreds
or wapentakes, and those again into tithings, deriving their
names from the original number of freemen who composed them. In each of
these divisions, bound by an ascertained responsibility of the community
and individuals to c each other, there was a head man who assembled his
district in courts, at stated times, for its common affairs and for trial
of causes. In the mature Anglo-Saxon constitution, there was a meeting of
the county court (a gemot of the scir-witan), twice in the
year, in which the Ealdorman, afterwards called Earl, along with the
Bishop, presided; and the Sheriff (scir gerefa, vice comes), was at
first an assessor, and afterwards the presiding officer. The subordinate
gemots met oftener.
The witan of the kingdom
(the king's high court or parliament) consisted of the great men, whether
ecclesiastics or laymen. Nothing of representation, strictly so called, is
to be found in Saxon times.
As in none of the
subordinate gemots could the head man determine anything but by the
advice and with the assent of the assembly; so it was in the national
assembly or parliament. The decision of public matters was in no case
entrusted to individuals.
The feudal institutions had
spread into England during the Anglo-Saxon period, and with them the
institutions of chivalry. The lean lands or lent lands of the Saxons were
evidently approaching to a sort of feudal tenure. Asser, the biographer of
Alfred, speaks of knights and vassals in his time. There is something like
the knightly girding with a sword, by AElfred, upon AEthelstan, and an
ancient Saxon oath of fealty, preserves the Saxon notion of vassal and
superior. ["Thus shall a man swear him; on condition that he me fealty:—By
the Lord, before whom this relic is holy, I will be to N. faithful and
true, and love all that he loves, and shun all that he shuns, according to
God's law, and according to the world's principles (worold-gerys-num), and
never, by will nor by force, by word nor by work, do aught of what is
loathful to keep as I am willing to deserve, and all that fulfil that our
agreement was when I to him submitted and chose his will." The words of
the original, of unknown antiquity, are rhythmical and
alliterative.—Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, I. 178. ]
I have dwelt upon these
details longer than they may appear to deserve, because we cannot but feel
an interest in those from whom we inherit our Saxon blood and language;
but yet more, because I think we can see, in these early English
institutions, the causes why the Norman conquest did not abolish Anglo-Saxonism,
as the Saxon possession obliterated everything of Roman Britain. There was
something in these institutions of Saxon England themselves that was worth
preserving; I think they secured a high degree of personal independence,
with safety to the community. They inspired feelings of self-respect, and
a sense of the obligations of men as members of society, that fitted them
peculiarly in later times for a representative government. They produced
that feeling of mutual responsibility and mutual confidence, and that
binding together of individuals and communities of the state, which I take
to be the chief distinction of Britain. It is this firm coherence, joined
to our admiration of that wonderful constitution under which we live, that
makes shocks the most alarming pass without injury, and convulsions of
public opinion which, in other countries, would shake the state and lead
to revolution and blood, end with us in a dissolution of parliament, or a
change of ministry.
I have said that the light
of Christianity was extinguished in Roman Britain by the conquest of the
Saxons. It may indeed have survived among the servile and degraded
Britons, who consented to remain among the new lords of their country, and
we know that it was preserved in Wales, as it was also in Ireland and
Scotland; but the Saxons for more than a century after they had taken full
possession of their English home, continued to worship Odin and Thor. When
Augustine was sent from Rome Pope Gregory the Great to preach the gospel
to the Anglo-Saxons, he required the intervention of Franks as his
interpreters. After he had converted AEthelbert of Kent, his people
followed the king's example, and in one year more than 10,000 were
baptized. Christianity as usual brought civilization in its train, and the
first convert of the Saxon princes was the compiler of the earliest code
of English laws, perhaps the earliest of those of Northern Europe. In
those days, conversions were made often by conquest, often by treaty and
bargain. A defeated army acknowledged their gods the weaker, and received
the religion of their conquerors, as they submitted to their tribute or
levy. So, when a leader consented to be baptized, he led his whole nation
with him to the font.
Edwin of Northumbria—known
in our romantic ballads as the child of Elle, and who gave name to the
Castle of Edinburgh—had been half converted, as we are told, partly by a
miraculous interference in his favour, partly, no doubt, through the
influence of a Christian wife. He gave his daughter to be baptized, when
he was assured that his queen's life was saved in the hour of trial,
through the prayers of the Christian Bishop Paulinus; and he promised to
renounce his idols and serve Christ, if He would grant him the victory
over his enemy Cwichelm, king of the West Saxons, who had tried to
assassinate him. He obtained a great victory, and on his return he called
a meeting of his friends and great council, and asked their opinion of the
new faith. Bede, a venerable authority, details the conference:— Caefi,
the high priest, declared that their old religion had no virtue or use;
"for," said he, "not one of your subjects has been more zealous than me in
the worship of our gods: and there are many who have received greater
benefits and honours from you, and prosper more in all their undertakings;
whereas, if our gods were of any power, they would rather help me, who
have so zealously served them." The priest was satisfied with his own
reasoning, and volunteered himself to profane the altars and shrines of
the gods, with their enclosures. When the people saw him mount a horse and
ride forward, armed for the purpose, Bede tells us that they thought him
mad; but they very soon followed his example, and set fire to the place of
heathen worship. Edwin was baptized with all his children. The nobles
crowded for baptism, and Paulinus was employed in the king's dwelling for
thirty-six days, from morning to evening, baptizing the people in the
river Glen, the stream which gives name to Glendale. That was but a small
part of the effects of the preaching of Paulinus, who was deservedly made
the first Saxon Bishop at York, and received the pall of Archbishop from
Pope Honorius.
It was necessary in such
circumstances to bear with some non-conformity — some backslidings into
the old worship, and the ways of their forefathers. And in this, truly,
the Church was lenient enough. Gregory, to suit the habits of the Kentish
neophytes, forbade the destruction of the old heathen temples, venerated
by the people; even their accustomed sacrifices he wished to associate
with some of the observances of the Church. But while Pome was
tolerant of laxity in the practice of her neophytes, she never lost sight
of her great policy of uniformity in all that touched the doctrines and
observances of the Church. With this view, Augustine endeavoured to win
over the Bishops of the ancient British Church, who differed from Borne in
points that we may indeed think trifling, but which were of no small
consequence, when they threatened to found a schism in the Christian
Church. The Welsh Bishops met the Roman missionary at a tree which was
long afterwards known as St. Augustine's oak, but without coming to any
settlement of their disputes. At another conference, which was attended by
seven British Bishops, and by the Abbot and several learned monks of
Bangor, St. Augustine demanded compliance upon only three points:— To
celebrate Easter at the proper season; To perform baptism after the manner
of Rome; To join with the Roman missionaries in preaching Christianity to
the Saxons. The Britons refused compliance upon all those points, which
were perhaps pressed somewhat overbearingly by the Pope's representative,
apparently against the conciliating intention of Gregory himself.
Augustine denounced against them the judgment of God, for refusing to aid
in preaching the way of life to the Saxons, and it was not long after,
when the Saxons fulfilled the prediction. "Those who pray against us,"
said they, "are our enemies, though unarmed;" and they put to death two
hundred of the monks of Bangor.
While the recent memory of
Saxon oppression led the Welsh Britons to refuse their aid for the
conversion of the Saxons to Christianity, no such feeling prevented the
Scotch Christians from devoting themselves to the Christianising of the
North of England. But I shall have another opportunity of directing your
attention to the preaching and success of the followers of St. Columba.
However introduced,
Christianity came at length; and if you examine carefully the history of
any nation, you will find that, besides higher blessings, it brought in
its train three remarkable effects — a tendency to unite — an inclination
for kingly governments — and a preference for hereditary institutions. I
cannot leave the subject of Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons, without
adverting to the number of zealous missionaries whom the Anglo-Saxon
Church sent forth, so soon after its own conversion. It seemed as if the
Saxons of England thought they could in no way better show their affection
to their German fatherland than by communicating to their kinsmen there,
the blessing of a revelation which they themselves had so recently
enjoyed. Wilbrod of Northumbria, and Winfred, better known by the name of
Boniface of Devonshire, in the early part of the eighth century, devoted
themselves with the most untiring zeal to the instruction of the German
peoples, and each lived to see churches cathedrals, and monasteries,
taking the place of Pagan groves and temples; and whole nations, seeking
for a succession of teachers from that country which was to them truly the
island of saints.
The struggle between the
Saxons and Danes brings us acquainted with two of the most memorable men
that have stamped their names on English history — Alfred and Cnut. It is
no wonder that Alfred should be the hero and idol of Anglo-Saxons. Their
leader in the death struggle with the Danes, he had all the national
sympathies on his side. He was the champion of Christianity against
Heathenesse, as well as the defender of Saxons against their barbarian
enemies—their saint as well as their hero. He was their king Arthur, only
more fortunate. Neither is it wonderful that on such a hero, succeeding
generations should have bestowed honours somewhat exaggerated. He is
commonly called the Anglo-Saxon lawgiver; and he collected indeed the laws
of former kings of the three principal states, which he governed; but he
himself tells us, that he was cautious of inserting enactments of his own,
as he was doubtful whether such would be approved by those that should
come after him. The division of the country into shires and hundreds, and
the introduction of the system of frank pledge, or the system by which
every man of a tithing was surety for every other, have been generally
attributed to Alfred, apparently without foundation; but after making due
discount for those overstatements, enough remains in Alfred to fill us
with wonder and admiration. Occupied during the better part of his life in
war against an invading enemy, he no sooner had breathing time than he
turned himself to the great work of restoring and civilizing his country.
His exertions were directed to all objects, and embraced every kind of
improvement. He rebuilt the ruined towns ; London itself, which, by the
Danish conflicts, was become an uninhabitable pile of ruins, he cleared
and rendered fair and habitable; he restored old roads and opened new
ones; he encouraged agriculture, and in his own country dwellings, set an
example of more convenient and more sightly buildings than the
Anglo-Saxons had hitherto used. He reformed the art of ship-building, and
provided a navy to cope with all the power of the Northmen. It sounds
strange to us now, that he took the seamen for his new ships from the
pirates, probably the Frisians, the best sailors of that time. While other
Anglo-Saxon kings had taken advantage of the devastations of war, and
appropriated to themselves the property of I. monasteries and churches
destroyed by the Danes; Alfred followed a nobler policy, in restoring and
re-endowing the establishments of religion, and in the utmost munificence
and most dutiful service to the Church and Christian preachers. The laws,
which he had collected and published, he was careful to enforce; and gave
much of his time to hearing of causes and appeals in his own court. He was
the enemy of oppression, and, as his biographer calls him, " the only
friend of the poor." He maintained a more regular intercourse with Rome
than his predecessors, and we must not forget that Rome was the centre of
literature and the arts, as well as of religion. He invited learned men to
his court, and endeavoured to restore some literature amongst his people,
which had so decayed during the Danish war, that, at the time of his
accession, very few south of the Humber, and none south of the Thames,
knew Latin enough to translate an easy Latin work. You will observe that
Asser, his biographer, to whom we owe this information, excepts
Northumbria from the censure of such ignorance; and we may hope, that the
cloisters of Wearmouth and Durham, where the venerable Bede had studied
Lucretius and Homer 150 years before, still preserved some taste and love
for letters.
Alfred, from his youth
laboured under some unknown disease, and although he is praised for his
vigour of body, and practised hunting to please his ( countrymen, his
favourite pursuits were of another kind. He purchased privileges for the
Saxon school at Rome, and he provided schools in Britain for education,
both in Saxon and Latin, and not only for priests, but also for the young
nobility, who he was anxious should learn to read and write; and
especially that they should learn poems in their mother tongue by heart,
before they were distracted by hunting and warlike exercises. I wish I
could say with truth that Oxford was one of those schools established by
Alfred. I think the evidence unsatisfactory; and, after all, even the
honour of such a founder and of so high antiquity, would add but little to
the dignity of that famous and venerable university. Alfred surrounded
himself with men of learning, and devoted much of his own time to study.
From his early youth he had delighted in reading and committing to memory
the poems of his native language. He learned Latin when he was thirty-nine
years old, and afterwards bestowed much of his time in making translations
from Latin into Saxon. He translated Boethius on the Consolation of
Philosophy, which, though now so little known, was perhaps the most
popular book of the middle ages; and the pastoral letter of Pope Gregory,
which must have been translated almost in the last year of his life. The
History of the World, by Orosius, he not only translated, hut prefixed to
it a description of Germany and the north of Europe, compiled by himself
from the narratives of the travellers Wulfstan and Ohthere. Many other
works of translation are attributed to Alfred, but upon uncertain
foundation, except, however, his Anglo-Saxon version of the history of the
venerable Bede — a work which stands high, and almost alone, in the
literature of the middle ages.
Alfred died on the 28th of
October 901, at the age of fifty-three. We love to trace in him the type
of the Anglo-Saxon nature, refined by education, and exalted by religion,
by adversity, and trial. His will has been preserved to us.
["On the death of AEthelred,
some disputes arose regarding the succession, in consequence of which
Alfred caused his father's will to be read before a witena-gemot assembled
at Langdene, pledging himself to bear no ill-will towards any one for
speaking justly, and beseeching them not to fear declaring according to
Folkright; so that no man might say that he had wronged his kin, either
young or old.
"After this preamble, the
king proceeds to the division of his property. To each of his sons he
devises lands and five hundred pounds; to his wife, Ealhswith, and each of
his three daughters, certain villages, and one hundred pounds; to AEthelm
and AEthelwold, his nephews, and to Osferth, his kinsman, certain
villages, and one hundred mancuses each; [The mancus was thirty pence.] to
each of his Ealdormen one hundred mancuses; to AEthered, ealdor-man, a
sword of a hundred mancuses; to be divided among his followers, two
hundred pounds; to the archbishop and three bishops, one hundred mancuses
each. Lastly, two hundred pounds for himself and his father, and those
friends for whose souls they had both made intercession, to be thus
divided: fifty pounds to as many mass priests, fifty to as many poor
ministers of God, fifty to the poor, and fifty to the church in which he
should rest. "Alfred adds — 'And I will that those to whom I have
bequeathed my bocland, dispose of it not out of my kin after their death,
but that it go to my nearest relative, except any of them have children,
and then it is more agreeable to me that it go to those born on the male
side, as long as any of them shall be worthy of it. My grandfather
bequeathed his lands on the spear-side, not on the spindle-side;
therefore, if I have given what he acquired to any of the female side, let
my kinsmen make compensation; and if they will have it during the life of
the party, be it so; if otherwise, let it remain during their days as we
have bequeathed it.' He then desires his relations and heirs not to
oppress any of his people, whether bond or free, nor aggrieve them by
exactions of money or otherwise; but that they may serve whatever lord
they will." — Thorpes Lappen-berg, II. 81.
In Cnut, whom our
historians have named Canute we have the type of a different race.
Acquiring the crown by fraud, and securing it by plentiful murders, he yet
ruled a people, jealous of him as a foreigner and an enemy, so
strenuously, but with such fairness, as to make them happier than they had
been lately under their native sovereigns. He was a remarkable instance of
a barbarian (for such he was in all respects), — without education,
without religion — apprehending by the grasp of his own intellect the
conduct that was fittest for his situation when wielding the sceptres of
three kingdoms. The savage sometimes shone out in him unmitigated. After
his defeat on the river Helga, where he owed his life to his
brother-in-law Ulf Jarl, he retreated to Roskilde to spend his Christmas,
but out of humour for the festivities of the season. On Christmas eve, Ulf
gave a great entertainment, and the brothers-in-law began to play chess.
Cnut was inattentive, and lost a knight; hut refused to give it up. Ulf
rose from the table, and in making for the door, threw down the board.
"Ho! coward Ulf! are you running away?" cried the king. "Not so far or so
fast as you would have run," said Ulf, "when I rescued you at the Helga,
where the Swedes were cudgelling you." Cnut went to bed; but next morning
he gave orders to a servant, — "Go and stab Ulf." The man returned and
told him that the Jarl had fled to the church of St. Lucius. But what was
the protection of the church to the savage Cnut ? He called to a
Norwegian, named Ivar Huida: "Go, stab the Jarl dead." Ivar went, found
Ulf in the choir, and ran him through with his sword. To his widowed
sister Cnut paid a blood-fine of two provinces.
Though thus ferocious, Cnut
was a stern administrator of the laws; and for enforcing them, used to
journey through his English states, attended by his councillors and
scribes. He has left us a large body of laws for the regulation and
protection of the Church and clergy, and he distributed with impartia-
lity their several rights to the Saxons and Danes. We cannot attribute to
him much true religious feeling, and he was exempt from all superstition 5
but he had a just sense of the interest of his people, and therefore he
protected religion, and favoured and enriched the clergy. He preferred
England to his Danish dominions, and the English people learned to look
upon the stern Dane as their friend and good king.
After his journey to Rome,
he sent a letter to his English subjects, which has been preserved, and
some part of which is very remarkable. It was sent by the hands of Living,
the abbot of Tavistock, afterwards the bishop of Crediton.
["Cnut, king of all England
and Denmark, and of part of Sweden, to AEthelnoth, the metropolitan, and
AElfric of York, and to all bishops and primates, and to the whole nation
of the English, both noble and ignoble, wishes health. I make known to you
that I have lately been to Rome, to pray for the redemption of my sins,
and for the prosperity of the kingdoms and peoples subject to my rule.
This journey I had long ago vowed to God, though, through affairs of state
and other impediments, I had hitherto been unable to perform it; but I now
humbly return thanks to God Almighty for having in my life granted me to
yearn after the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and every sacred place
within and without the city of Rome which I could learn of, and, according
to my desire, personally to venerate and adore. And this I have executed
chiefly because I had learned from wise men that the holy Apostle Peter
had received from the Lord the great power of binding and loosing, and was
key-bearer of the celestial kingdom; and I therefore deemed it extremely
useful to desire his patronage before God.
"Be it now known to you
that there was a great assembly of nobles at the Easter celebration with
the Lord Pope John and the Emperor Conrad, to wit, all the princes of the
nations from Mount Gargano to the nearest sea, who all received me
honourably, and honoured me with rich gifts. But I have been chiefly
honoured by the Emperor, with divers magnificent presents, as well in
golden and silver vases, as in mantles and vestments exceedingly
precious."
"I then complained to the
Lord Pope, and said that it greatly displeased me, that, from my
archbishops such immense sums of money were exacted when, according to
usage, they visited the apostolic see to receive the pall; and it was
agreed that thenceforth such exactions should not be made. And all that I
have demanded for the benefit of my people from the Lord Pope, from the
Emperor, from king Rudolf, and from the other princes through whose
territories our way lies to Home, they have freely granted."
"Now, then, be it known to
you that I have vowed, as a suppliant from henceforth, to justify in all
things my whole life to God, and to rule the kingdoms and peoples
subjected to me justly and piously, to maintain equal justice among all;
and if through the intemperance of my youth, or through negligence I have
done aught hitherto contrary to what is just, I intend with the aid of God
to amend all."
"I therefore wish it to be
made known to you, that returning by the same way that I departed, I am
going to Denmark for the purpose of settling with the Counsel of all the
Danes, firm and lasting peace with those nations which, had it been in
their power, would have deprived us of our life and kingdoms."
"I therefore conjure all my
bishops and ealdormen, by the fealty which they owe to me and to God, so
to order that before I come to England, the debts of all which we owe
according to the old law be paid; to wit, plough-alms, and a tithe of
animals brought forth during the year, and the pence which ye owe to St.
Peter at Rome, both from the cities and villages; and in the middle of
August, a tithe of fruits, and at the feast of St. Martin the first fruits
of things sown, to the church of the parish in which each one dwells,
which is in English called coric-sceat. If when I come, these and others
are not paid, he who is in fault shall be punished by the royal power
severely, and without any remission. Farewell."—Lappenberg, II. 212.]
The invasion of the Danes,
however productive of suffering, and often threatening ruin to the
very-existence of the English nation, did not eventually produce much
change upon the established institutions. As soon as the Danish freebooter
had acquired an interest in the soil, and settled his family in the fields
or towns of England, he conformed readily to the usages and laws of a
people of kindred origin and manners, and almost common language.
"Scarcely," says an old chronicler, "was there one village in England in
which the Danes were not mixed with the English." The same author gravely
relates "that the Danes bequeathed to England legacy . . . their custom of
drinking fair." I fear the Saxons were willing and apt pupils.
I must not indulge myself
by dwelling longer on the English portion of British history — a history
full of interest in itself — crowded with romantic incident, and where the
details are gathered from those simple unsuspected sources, the most
fascinating reading, those contemporary chronicles of which France and
England are so rich, and we so poor. The "study would be fascinating from
the mere dramatic interest, the bold and truthful outlines of individual
character, the scenes full of high passion, and all the materials of deep
tragedy. But to us Britons, to us Scotchmen, bound now for ever to the
fortunes of mighty England, bearing with her the burden, sharing with
Englishmen their noble birthright — each event, each apparently
insignificant accident, assumes an importance beyond the rise and fall of
empires, if it can be traced as the remote cause of any of the steps of
progress, any of the peculiarities of our revered constitution.
I might perhaps have an
excuse for dwelling at greater length on the Norman conquest — an event
that very speedily affected the institutions of Scotland, though producing
no 'change in its dynasty — but I feel that I must press forward to that
which I have prescribed to myself, as my proper and peculiar object.
When William of Normandy
had proclaimed his crusade against England, and prevailed with the Pope
(or rather with Hildebrand, the scheming prelate who then ruled the Roman
councils as effectually as when he afterwards consented to wear the tiara
as Pope Gregory the VII.) to bless his banner; there was no dearth of
allies and assistants. Every man had heard of the riches of England; its
cities crowded with trade; its fields covered with corn and sheep and
cattle ; its lordly castles and fat monasteries. Every needy adventurer
who hoped to make his fortune by his sword; every younger brother who
aspired to wed a wealthy Saxon heiress—all came to his summons and all
were welcomed, provided they were tall men of their hands — good men at
arms — "proceri corpore, prae-stantes robore." One churchman, Remi de
Feschamp, who had raised twenty men-at-arms and provided a ship for the
expedition, had a promise of an English bishoprick, and obtained it.
[Bishopric of Lincoln.] Among the crowd of adventurers, we are interested
in two youths, Brian and Allan, two of the sons of Eudes, Governor, or as
we should say Tutor, during the minority of his nephew the Count of
Bretagne. They were called by their own people, in their own Celtic
tongue, Mac-tiern — the sons of the chief. We can conceive the feelings
with which those youths embarked on the high enterprise, to recover their
ancient birthright in England, and to take vengeance on the Saxons, who
had expelled their forefathers.
It would exceed my limits
to enter upon the inquiry as to the cause of the success of the Normans in
England, and why the country, which had struggled so stubbornly against
defeat and disunion in the Danish invasions, seemed to peril its existence
now on the issue of one battle, and having lost it, to submit slavishly to
a mere handful of invaders. The intrigues of Rome had some effect, and yet
more, the Norman feeling, so unhappily spread through the English clergy
since the time of the Confessor.
When the rashness of the
gallant Harald had thrown away his kingdom and his life, and made a
handful of Norman cavaliers lords of broad England, most of the phenomena
were renewed which had rendered their occupation of Normandy so
remarkable. They had, in the century and a half of their occupation of
France, acquired a new language; and the Norman-French they had so lightly
adopted, was for a time the only tongue for a gentleman, while Saxon was
the mark of the Franklin and Churl. They had brought with them the newest
customs of feudalism, and found the Norman tenures well fitted for
oppressing the native occupants of the soil. They brought their laws of
the game, their cruel forest law. They imported all that they had learned
in their short sojourn in France. But they were scarcely well embued with
those French institutions. They had not elaborated laws to suit their own
position. Their customs of chivalry were merely caught by contagion. Their
language they had not cultivated. No chronicler or poet had yet sung of
the French Normans, or given stability or precision to their dialect. All
this contrasted remarkably with the situation of their new subjects. The
Anglo-Saxon language had been long cultivated in prose and poetry, and was
endeared to the people, from having been written by their great Alfred and
by the fathers of their Church, before any other vernacular tongue of
Europe had been studied by the learned. Their laws, too, had been
methodised, and gave a definite protection to the person and property ;
and their institutions were eminently those of free men. For centuries
afterwards, when Englishmen, roused by oppression, shouted a general claim
of right, it was, that they might be governed by the laws of Alfred and of
Edward the Confessor. There was an earnestness in the people that gave a
zeal to their nationality before which the novel customs of the Normans
could not long stand. As had happened to the Normans before, and as had
happened in similar cases since the days of the Roman conquest of Greece,
the cultivated and written language prevailed over the rude and unwritten,
and the institutions of the civilised subjects modified and refined the
customs of the barbarous conquerors.
I confess that even these
causes do not quite account for the rapid recovery by the English of their
rights and privileges under their new masters. With all the haughty Norman
oppression which our English chroniclers so condemn, there was plainly no
attempt at extermination, nor even an effort to degrade the old occupants
into a servile condition. That is proved even by the number of the Norman
chiefs, who made their fortunes by marrying Saxon heiresses. Perhaps the
conquerors at length felt some sympathy with their kinsmen of the old
Teutonic race. Perhaps they found it dangerous to press to extremity, a
gallant, a numerous, and united people. |
