CHAP. 1. in the old Roman municipalities, they became the defenders of the conquered populations in general, and of municipal rights in particular. Everywhere on the continent the progress of civilisation was determined by the form of compromise between the Roman civilisation upheld by the clergy, and the ruder but more vigorous civilisation of the Teutonic kings. 15 CHAPTER II. THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENT AND THE ENGLISH KINGSHIP. CHAP. I. §1. The Province of Roman THE inhabitants of the southern portion of Britain which alone had been brought under Roman domination were even in worse case than their Gaulish neighbours. Large districts, especially in the western and more hilly part of the island, retained their Celtic speech and their Britain. Celtic habits. Even where Roman civilisation had made its way, its influence had been far more superficial than in Gaul. What intellectual vigour there was in the fourth century in any part of the empire, expressed itself chiefly in ecclesiastical legislation and literature, and the British church gave evidence of its weakness by taking little part in either. When in the beginning of the fifth century, the Roman legions were finally withdrawn, the provincials, divided amongst themselves, and enervated and helpless through the long habit of looking elsewhere than to their own courage for defence, fell a prey to the ravages of the Celtic tribes who had retained their independence of Rome. The Picts of those northern regions which now bear the name of Scotland, and the Scots of Ireland, whose colony in the Western Highlands was afterwards to impress that name upon the North of Britain, ravaged the land without mercy. The more distinctly Celtic West resisted not without success. The Romanised Celt of the East invited the СНАР. II. § 2. The English Settle ments. alliance of the Teutonic sea-rovers who had long been the piratic assailants of their coast. When in the middle of the fifth century, our Teutonic ancestors landed on the shores of Britain, they carved out settlements for themselves; they were Jutes, and Saxons and Angles from the coast which stretches from Jutland to the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. Over the horror of the struggle a thick darkness has settled down, and, with the exception of one lightning-flash from a Celtic writer, it was only by its leading features, by a battle or a siege traditionally remembered, that any portion of it could be recovered when civilisation and its power of recording events again spread over the land. At the end of a century and a half, the Teutonic settlers occupied the whole of the eastern half of the land, from the Forth to the Straits of Dover, and from the coast of the German Ocean to the Severn. Over all this tract the Low German speech of the invaders was to be heard. To what extent the British population had disappeared is a matter of controversy. It is a point on which no certain knowledge is atttainable. The invaders did not enter the island impressed with the dignity of Roman civilisation. They knew nothing of the Roman speech. They seized upon the land of the Britons. They stormed and sacked their cities. They probably often carried off their daughters to be their wives or concubines. The men who resisted were slain as wild beasts are slain, without thought of mercy. Of the rest some were reduced to slavery, some may have kept up a precarious independence in the woods. Under such circumstances a population suffers fearful diminution from misery and starvation. The weak and the old with the young child, the hope of future generations, perish for lack of food. Yet whatever the numerical amount of the survivors may have been, the general result is certain. The Teu tonic speech, save in a few words used principally by women and slaves, prevailed everywhere. The Teutonic law, the Teutonic way of life, was the rule of the land. The Teutonic heathenism was unchanged. The Celtic element, whether it was larger or smaller, was absorbed and left scarcely a trace behind. CHAP. of the If the history of the settlement is to be gathered $3. Infrom scanty tradition, the character and institutions of stitutions the settlers have to be inferred from that which is known Settlers. of them in their own land, and from that which is known of them later in the land of their adoption. Fierce and masterful as they were, they were not barbarians except in antithesis to the civilisation of Rome. The stage which they had reached was very much that of the Homeric Greeks, if we allow for the greater inclemency of a northern sky. Each tribe was complete in itself. It had its own assembly of freemen whose voice was decisive in regulating its actions. At its head was a chief, the ealdorman, as he was named, who guided its deliberations, and who, after its arrival in England at least, headed it in war. The freemen themselves were composed of two ranks, eorls and ceorls. The eorls or nobles by birth, whose origin is lost in the mists of the past, had an honorary pre-eminence. Their voice was of greater weight, their life was of greater value, their share of booty larger. But they did not make the state, though they had doubtless much to do with its direction. In fact there was nothing that we should now call political life in existence. New legislation there was none. The old customs handed down from father to son in Germany were adhered to here, and the only question which could arise for deliberation was whether some new expedition should be undertaken against the enemy. Outside the assembly, as well as within it, all freemen were equal, however much they might differ in C influence or wealth. Each man had his own share of the conquered land, and his share of pasturage or woodcutting in the folkland-the common land that had been left undivided. The organisation of which he formed a part did not, as in the empire, reach from the state to the individual, but from the individual to the state. Each township which, in an ecclesiastical form, became the parish of modern days, made its appearance once a month, in the hundred mote, to decide quarrels and to witness contracts; whilst the members of the tribe met twice a year to decide matters of more general importance. As every man was a judge,-unless indeed, the practice of attending the hundred mote by a deputation of the reeve, or head man, and four best men of the township had been already adopted, so every man was a soldier. The assembly was in truth the tribe in arms, and the eorls and the ealdormen could but lead, they could not constrain the will of their fellow tribes men. Left in the positions which they had originally occupied, the tribes might have retained these institutions unaltered for centuries. The progress of the war necessitated expansion and amalgamation, in order that greater force might be brought to bear on the enemy. As it had been with Rome, so it was now with the English tribe. The system of popular assemblies had reached its limit. The men of Dorset or the men of Norfolk could come up without difficulty to the place of meeting. The men of a state reaching from the Severn to the borders of Sussex, could not come up. The idea of delegation, if it as yet existed at all, had not acquired sufficient strength to suggest the idea of a general collective council. Recourse was had to a different factor in the commonwealth. Of all human occupations, war requires the most complete discipline and the most prompt obedience |