Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/288

Rh 274 E N G L A N D [HISTORY. of king ship. the kingly oilice. But the most distant kinsman lit tlic male line is as much one of the kingly stock as the king himself, and the choice of the nation may fall upon him. There is no point in our early constitution which is more im portant to insist on than this. Nothing has led to more and &quot;reater misconceptions than carrying back the legal theories of later days into earlier times, than fancying that every prince was an usurper whose succession to the crown did not take place according to rules which he and those who chose him had never heard of, and would not have under stood. Gradual The institution of kingship came in gradually among the growth Teutonic nations, and its growth was much slower in some parts than in others. In the time of Tacitus, kingship was clearly far from universal. By the time of the Wandering of thj Nations, when scattered tribes had begun to gather to gether in greater masses, it was clearly the rule. Among the Saxons its growth was specially slow. Among the Old- Sixons who stayed behind in Germany it never came in at all. So both the Saxon and the Jutish leaders came to Britain, not as kings, but as ealdormen or Heretoyan. They were of the stock of Woden, and were therefore qualified for kingship ; but they did not take the kingly title till they had made a firm settlement in the country. The institution of kingship seems to have grown up in different ways in different parts of England. From all that we can see of the Anglian kingdoms, they were formed by the union of several states into one greater kingdom. In such a case the ealdormen or kings of the incorporated states might go on under the superiority of the common king ; but the king sank into the under-kiny, kingly in descent, kingly in office among his own people, but owning the external authority of the common king. In Wessex the course of things was otherwise. There too we find several kings at once; but ail are, not only of the stock of Woden, but of the house of Cerdic. There was moreover always one head king over the whole West-Saxon nation. Something of the same kind seems to have been the rule in Kent. We see, though dimly, signs of a separate, and doubtless subordinate, king dom of the West-Kentishmen. Earls Among the English conquerors of Britain we see from and the beginning the same elements of political life which we churls. see amuu g t,] ]e other Teutonic nations, and which were doubt less parts of the original Aryan inheritance. The inhabit ants of the land fall into two great classes, the free and the unfree, classes each of which is again capable of subdivision. Every freeman is a citizen and a soldier ; he is, or may be, a landowner ; he has his place in the army, his voice in the assembly. But all freemen are not equal in rank and honour. There is a broad distinction, a distinction so old that its beginning cannot be traced, between the man who is simply free and the man who is not only free but noble. This distinction is expressed in different Teutonic dialects by the rhyming names eorl and ceorl, jarl and karl, in modern English form, earl and churl. These two last words have in modern use changed their meaning In their oldest sense they answer to the modern phrase gentle and simple. It is impossible to say in what the privileges of the eorl consisted, nor is there anything to show that they were oppressive. But the distinction was broadly drawn, and the birth of the eorl clearly entitled him to special respect and honour, if to nothing more. And such special respect and honour would, in the common course of things, give the eorlas a preference for all offices and dis tinctions, whether honorary or substantial, which either king or people had to bestow. The unfree class again were clearly not on a level in all times and places. The actual slave, the thrall, the &amp;gt;tow, is found everywhere. The class is formed and recruited in two ways. The cap tive taken in war accepts slavery as a lighter duoua than death ; the freeman who is guilty of certain crimes is de- Thesla graded to the state of slavery by sentence of law. In either case the servile condition of the parent is inherited by his children, and the slave class goes on increasing. The existence of other classes between the absolute slave, the mere chattel of his master, and the full freeman, with his place in the army and his voice in the assembly, is possible and frequent, but not universal. It was a natural position either for the enfranchised slave, for the foreign settler, or for the conquered enemy who was admitted to more favourable terms than usual. Out of such cases there might easily arise a class, personally free, but not possessed of the full political rights of freedom. There might indeed be many stages of imperfect freedom or mitigated bondage between the personal slave and the free churl. To some of these intermediate ranks the slave might rise or the freeman might sink. But such a class, though often found, is not a necessary element in Teutonic society. But the eorl, the churl, and the thrall, are found everywhere. They are taken for granted ; and legend represented the three classes as called into being by separate acts of the creative power of the gods. All these, as essential elements of Teutonic society, are found among our forefathers from the beginning. But in all Teutonic societies another principle was at work, which began very early to change the nature of primitive Teutonic society. That society was a community, a community which, like all other communities, admitted distinctions of rank, wealth, and office, but where each man, earl or churl, held his place strictly as a member of the community, bound by its laws, and owing to it his duties in war and in peace. The Teutonic community differs from the Greek or Italian city in so far as it is not fenced in with walls, but has its inhabited places spread over the whole of its territory. But its leading political conception is essentially the same. The king or ealdorman is clothed with the authority of a leader. The earls have their privileges, in whatever those privileges may consist. In the assembly the king and the earls may consult and propose, while the simple freemen merely say yea or nay. But each discharges his duty in his higher or lower place strictiy as a member of the community. His duty, his allegiance, is due to the whole society, not to any particular member of it. This primitive system was from a very early time broken in upon by the practice of personal commendation Comin, to a lord. Such commendation was in its beginning strictly military. In the primitive community the army is simply the nation under arms. Each man discharges his duties in war, like his duties in peace, in obedience to the law of the society of which he is part. But at a very early time for the picture stands out distinctly in Tacitus successful and popular leaders began to gather round them a band of special followers, devoted by a personal tie to themselves. Where the chief led they followed. The tie was mutual. For the chief to forsake his followers, for the followers to forsake their chief, was alike shameful. A personal tie thus arose between man and man, alongside of the political tie which bound each member of the community to the com munity itself. The king, ealdorman, or other chief, became something more than the magistrate and captain of the com munity. He became the personal lord of some particular men among its members. They became his men, bound to Growl do him persona} service. He became their Mctford, lord, in the primitive meaning of the word, loaf-giver, who was to reward the service which they rendered to him. The new principle spread, and gradually made its way into every relation of Teutonic society. The personal following of the king, his gesiffas cr companions, his &amp;gt;egnas or servants, grew into a nubility of office. Thus arose the nobility of the thegns, which &amp;lt; raiually supplanted the older nobility of birth, the nobility of the earls. The growth of the