mesne lord, if (as in the great majority of cases) some peer or baron, or perchance several of them, intervened between the Crown and the occupant of the soil.

Besides thus "breaking in upon the feudal compact in its most essential attributes, the exclusive dependence of a vassal upon his immediate lord,"* William took other effective measures to keep down the influence of the aristocracy, and exalt that of the Crown. While lavishly generous in his grants of land to those who had served him, he took care to reward each leading Norman noble by estates scattered over different parts of the kingdom, and not by compact little principalities, which might serve as bases of rebellion, and form independent States. He maintained also in effective force the supreme authority of his own royal tribunal; and kept within as narrow limits as possible the territorial jurisdiction which each lord of a manor exercised in his court baron. He had the wisdom also to retain the Saxon popular tribunals of the county court and the court of the hundred, although he diminished the dignity of the county court by withdrawing ecclesiastical matters from its cognizance. For all purposes of temporal jurisdiction it was preserved. It may, indeed, be said to have acquired vigour, and to have become more democratic in character under the Anglo-Norman kings, than it had been before the Conquest. Under the Anglo-Saxon system only the thanes, that is, the gentry, could act and vote as members of the county court. Under the Anglo-Norman rule all persons who held any land by a free tenure had a right to attend the county court and to take part both as suitors and voters in its proceedings. While these demo

* Hallam, vol. ii. p. 312.

cratic courts of the shire and the hundred flourished, and while also the power of the king's courts was gradually extended (as was done by the Conqueror's wisest successors), it was impossible for any feudal lord in England to raise his baronial court into the judicial importance which was arrogated by each count and seignior on the Continent.

Such licensed anarchy, as is implied by a recognized right of private warfare, was little likely to be permitted under the iron rule of William. Every man, small or great, was bound to keep the king's peace, and was amenable to the criminal law for the breach of it. Instances of violence and strife between rival nobles, that seem to amount to private warfare, may certainly be found in the Anglo-Norman times, but these, even when unpunished, were looked on as breaches of the law, and not as things done in the exercise of legal privileges.*

Thus, Norman feudalism in England secured more order and regularity, and embodied a stronger central governing power, than could be maintained in the feudal States of Continental Christendom. There were other causes for the predominant importance and authority of Anglo-Norman royalty. One of these was the immense wealth of the Crown, independently of any contributions from its subjects. William kept nearly 1500 manors, and almost all the cities and towns of any note, as his own share of the spoils of the Conquest. Another cause was the readiness with which the oppressed Saxon part of the population ever served the king against any of their

* See Hallam, vol. ii. p. 345. The instances cited by Allen (on the Royal Prerogative, p. 120)

seem to confirm Hallam's remarks

Norman barons who rebelled. A third, and not the least important cause, was the remarkable intellectual capacity and energy which characterized not only the Conqueror himself, but all his successors on our throne, until John became king of England.*

We shall have occasion hereafter to observe the happy peculiarity of our Constitution, by which England secured the blessing of a Nobility, but escaped the curse of a numerous Noblesse, such as overspread the other feudal States of Europe. At present our attention has been limited to the distinctive points of English feudality, prior to the reign of John.

We may now direct our attention to the condition of the population of the land, at the time when this degenerate inheritor of the Conqueror's sceptre roused all classes of freemen into a joint struggle against the abused predominance of royal power.

* See Palgrave's "Normandy and England,” pp. 704, 707.

CHAPTER IX.

State of the Mass of the English Nation at the Commencement of the Thirteenth Century.-The Peasantry.-Villeinage: its Incidents its probable Origin and Extent; and the Modes of becoming emancipated from it.-State of the Lower Classes in Towns.-State of the Middle and Upper Classes.-The various Tenures of Land.-State of the Boroughs after the Conquest.Their partial Recovery of their Liberties.

Of the two millions of human beings who inhabited England in the reign of John, a very large number, probably nearly half, were in a state of slavery. Those who are disposed to listen to tales about "Merrie England," and "the good old times," should remember this fact. At the commencement of true English history, we start with the labourers in abject wretchedness. The narrative of the changes in their social and political positions thenceforward to modern times, is certainly a history of progressive amelioration, though lamentably slow and imperfect.

The technical name for the kind of slavery which prevailed in Anglo-Norman England is Villeinage. Some slaves were annexed to certain lands, and passed into the dominion of the heirs or purchasers of those lands, whenever the ground, which was considered the more important property, changed owners. These were called " Villeins regardant." Others were bought and sold, and passed

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from master to master, without respect to any land. These were termed "Villeins in gross:" the ancient law applying to them the same uncouth but expressive phraseology, by which it spoke of rights of common and other inanimate legal entities.

It is probable that the number of villeins in gross was never very considerable: but there are good grounds for believing that, at the commencement of the thirteenth century, the greater part of the labouring agricultural population of England (including not only actual farm-labourers, but the followers of those handicrafts which are closely connected with husbandry, and were practised on the land) were villeins regardant, and were looked on merely as so much of the live-stock of the land to which they belonged.

The best description of the ancient state of villeinage is contained in Mr. Hargreaves' celebrated argument in the case of the Negro Somerset, in 1772; where he successfully maintained the noble position, that a slave who touched British ground became free. He proved this by showing that the law of England had never [that is to say, never since the formation of the Common Law] recognized any species of slavery, except the ancient one of villeinage, then long extinct; and that our law had effectually guarded against the introduction of any new sort of slavery into England. In doing this, Mr. Hargreaves was led to make the most full and accurate investigation of the nature of villeinage which has ever been effected; and the law-tract to which I refer, is consequently of the highest value to the student of early English history.

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Slavery," says Mr. Hargreaves, "always imports an obligation of perpetual service; an obligation which only the consent of the master can dissolve. It generally