Nor need we imagine that the
public council would become disorderly or confused by admitting so great
a multitude. The landed property of England was probably in few hands
during the Saxon times, at least, during the latter part of that period;
and, as men had hardly any ambition to attend those public councils,
there was no danger of the assembly's becoming too numerous for the
despatch of the little business which was brought before them.
It is certain that, whatever we may determine concerning the constituent
members of the wittenagemot, in whom, with the king, the legislature
resided, the Anglo-Saxon government, in the period preceding the Norman
conquest, was becoming extremely aristocratical: the royal authority
was very limited; the people, even if admitted to that assembly, were
of little or no weight and consideration. We have hints given us in
historians of the great power and riches of particular noblemen; and
it could not but happen, after the abolition of the Heptarchy, when
the king lived at a distance from the provinces, that those great
proprietors, who resided on their estates, would much augment their
authority over their vassals and retainers, and over all the inhabitants
of the neighborhood.
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