Though we are not informed of any of these circumstances by
ancient historians, they are so much founded on the nature of things,
that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible consequence of the
situation of the kingdom during those ages.
[* Spel. Feus and Tenures, p. 40.]
[** Wilkins, p. 71.]
[*** Selden, Titles of Honor, p, 515. Wilkins, p.
7.]
The cities appear by domesday-book to have been, at the conquest little
better than villages.[*] York itself, though it was always the second,
at least the third[**] city in England, and was the capital of a great
province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest, contained
then but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families.[***] Malmsbury
tells us,[****] that the great distinction between the Anglo-Saxon
nobility and the French and Norman, was, that the latter built
magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed their
immense fortunes in riot and hospitality, and in mean houses. We may
thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced in
England than in France: a greater number of idle servants and retainers
lived about the great families; and as these, even in France, were
powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we may judge of
the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England.
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