(1175). Meanwhile the French king made peace with Henry; the English rebels submitted to him; and his sons returned to their obedience, and did homage for their possessions.

The following years were occupied in the internal administration of the kingdom; the constitution of which, as a Norman sovereignty, was now definitively settled, before it received those new elements of freedom which were added under the later Plantagenets.

The Norman constitution had this one point in common with the Saxon, that both were based on a military organization. The state was modelled on the camp. But this organization assumed very different forms among the Germans in their native homes, and among the hordes that overran the provinces of the Roman empire. The former cherished greater loyalty to their chiefs, and greater respect for the rights of individual citizens; the latter, banded together as brethren in arms, made a boast of personal independence and equality among themselves, while the people subdued by them formed a lower class, looked upon as having no political and scarcely any social rights. When Charles the Simple inquired of the Northmen what title their leader bore, the reply was, "None, we are all equally free." When they began to form settled states, they found it necessary to frame institutions based upon, but modifying, these principles; and hence arose that celebrated constitution, of which we still preserve many traces, called the FEUDAL SYSTEM.

The essential idea of this system was, that among the gentlemen of equal birth, and equally entitled to bear arms, such voluntary service should be rendered to those whom fortune and ability had raised above the rest, as might be honourable in itself and consistent with personal independence; and that this service should be rewarded in the like spirit. It was on these terms only that the king was raised over his peers (i. e. pares, as the nobles were emphatically called, to assert their equality), and they above their retainers who were of gentle blood. The relation may be compared to that which still exists in our naval and military services, where the officers are equal as gentlemen, but have their allotted ranks for the purposes of the service; only the bond of discipline was almost wanting. The persons being in this position, their claim on the property acquired in the countries they overran was also equal in theory; but its distribution was regulated as follows. The king was the supreme lord of the land, with exceptions to be mentioned presently. The public land was the fund for rewarding the military service which his peers and others were bound to render to the king, while its possession formed a new obligation to such service. The possessions so held were called fiefs (in Latin, beneficia); and the possessor became the vassal of the king, who was the feudal lord

or suzerain. The vassal was bound to follow the banner of his lord with a force proportioned to the extent of his tenure, to assist him with his counsel, and to attend as an assessor in his courts of justice, besides other minor services. The lord was bound to protect the vassal in the secure enjoyment of his fief: and both owed to one another the protection of each other's person.

Such being the relation between the king and great vassals, who held immediately under him, these were, in their turn, surrounded by a class of retainers, who owned them as their feudal lords. To such vassals the lord parcelled out his estate by a process called sub-infeudation, and he administered justice to them in his own courts. The few lands that remained free, that is, which were not bound to render service to a suzerain, though liable to burthens for the public defence, were called alodial in contradistinction to feudal. The vassals received their fiefs from the feudal lord by investiture, taking an oath of fealty and doing homage to him for the fief. This homage was either liege or simple, the former being the more binding.

This system tended to increase the power of the great feudatories at the expense of the crown. Their service to the sovereign was only occasional; but they themselves were constantly surrounded by their retainers, who feasted in their halls, shared their sports, and lived under their protection. Their castles were for the most part fortified; and they kept their retainers exercised in constant petty wars among themselves. Hence the feudal system tended to that military aristocracy, which only yielded to the progress of commerce and the rise of cities, the true strongholds of freedom.

The feudal system was introduced into England by the Norman Conquest. Its pressure on the common people was aggravated by the completeness of the subjection of the Saxon race. All the land was held by feudal tenure, and there was no allodium. The few Saxons who were permitted to retain their lands were brought under the feudal system; and the thanes were reduced to the condition of franklins, or simple freeholders. The Normans, who held most of the manors from the king, were called tenants-in-chief (in capite); and they were bound to knight-service, that is, to maintain in the field, for forty days at a time, a certain force of their subtenants. This service extended to religious foundations and monasteries. Exclusive of these, 1400 tenants-in-chief and about 8000 mesne lords (holding fiefs not directly from the crown) are enumerated in Domesday Book.

There were some peculiarities in the Anglo-Norman feudal system which gave greater power to the king than he had in other rountries-for instance, France. Generally the oath of the vassal

was taken to his immediate lord; but William made all the vassals. mesne as well as chief, take the oath to himself. Again, as the conquered lands were distributed to his followers at his pleasure, he took care not to make the estates so large as to be dangerous to himself, and he distributed them over different counties. Hence the nobles of England seldom defied the crown, or carried on private wars, as they did in other countries.

The legislative power was vested in the king, together with the Great Council of the Realm, or Royal Court, afterwards called THE PARLIAMENT.

This council was composed of the archbishops, bishops, and principal abbots, with the Greater Barons, that is, the superior class (for there were two classes) of tenants under the crown. The lesser barons were also summoned, especially when taxes were to be imposed; but the commons, that is, the representatives of counties and boroughs, had no place in the council before the reign of Henry III. The functions of the Great Council were to grant money to the king, and to assist him in making new laws. For the former purpose the consent of the lesser as well as the greater barons was required; and the Norman kings bound themselves not to levy money from their tenants without their consent being given in a great council of the realm. The Council used to be summoned at the great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and at other times as occasion required. How far its assent was necessary to the making of laws does not appear. Indeed, the whole process of legislation under the Norman kings was in a very unsettled state. The royal charters were confirmations of old privileges, rather than new enactments; and in the practical administration of justice there seems to have been a conflict between the will of the sovereign and the Anglo-Saxon laws, in which the latter constantly gained more and more force. Some even regard the Norman Code, called the Grand Coutumier (or great customary), as of Anglo-Saxon origin. It was not till the reign of Henry II. that the Norman kings began to be real legislators, and to this reign belong most of the changes which are commonly ascribed to the Conqueror.

Justice was administered by the king, in his select council (Curia or Aula Regis), which always attended his person. It was composed of the great officers of state, who were also the king's political advisers and executive servants. A branch of this council, called the Court of Exchequer, which can be traced back to the reign of Henry I., decided all questions connected with the revenue. Afterwards another branch was made, for private suitors, who had been compelled previously to follow the royal court, called the Court of Common Pleas. It originated early in the reign of

Richard I., and was fully established by Magna Charta. Thus arose the three great courts of common law, which continue to the present day.

The old Saxon courts of the County and the Hundred still continued; and they formed a great check on the courts of the barons, as all freeholders, up to the greatest barons, were bound to assist the sheriff in these courts. An appeal lay from both the county and the baronial courts to the court of the king; and, to save suitors the trouble and expense of following the king's court, itinerant judges (Justices in Eyre) were appointed under Henry II. (A.D. 1176) to visit the six districts into which the kingdom was divided for this purpose, and which very nearly corresponded to the present circuits of the judges.

The modes of deciding cases by compurgation and by the ordeal were continued for a time; but the former was abolished by Henry II., except in London and the other boroughs, and the latter by the Fourth Lateran Council at the beginning of the reign of Henry III. The ordeal was superseded by the trial by combat, in which the accused might maintain his cause by his body in single combat with his accuser, in the faith that "God would defend the right." In suits for the recovery of land, Henry II. enacted that a tenant, who was unwilling to risk the combat, might put himself on the assize, consisting of four knights chosen by the sheriff, who chose twelve more, and the verdict of the sixteen decided the case. But this was only in the king's court, and in those of the itinerant justices.

The Norman kings derived a fixed and independent revenue from their vast crown lands; but they also levied taxes, called tallages, on all who lived within their demesne. There was also the escuage or scutage, a composition paid by the chief tenants who neglected to furnish the number of soldiers corresponding to their estate. The Danegeld was also continued; the last instance of its levy being in the 20th year of Henry II., A.D. 1174. There were other important sources of revenue arising out of the feudal system. (1) A Relief was a fine paid to the lord by a new heir when succeeding to his fief. (2) A Fine upon alienation was paid when a tenant transferred his fief to another. (3) An Escheat was when a fief reverted to the lord in consequence of the death of a tenant without heirs. (4) A Forfeiture arose from the tenant failing to perform his duties to the lord or to the state. (5) Aids were contributions demanded from the vassals under special circumstances. (6) Wardship was the right of the lord to the care of his tenant's person, and to receive the profits of his estate, during his minority. (7) The Marriage of female wards was a source of revenue, by the

that the son of a villein should not take orders without the consent of his feudal lord. This article was designed to make it more difficult for Saxons to enter the church. Other articles provided for bringing clerical contracts and rights of advowson under the cognizance of the civil courts. Of the above provisions the first had become necessary to the existence of social order; for the ecclesiastical courts only inflicted spiritual penalties; and the result was such a frightful increase of clerical crime, that 100 murders had been committed by clergymen since the king's accession. Some of the other articles went far beyond the customs sanctioned under Henry I., in restricting the privileges of the clergy.

The council of Clarendon enacted also some laws respecting civil affairs, which were not confirmed till 1176. They are called the Assize of Clarendon.

Becket's proud spirit impelled him to refuse submission to the Constitutions; but as they were accepted by the other bishops, he was obliged to yield. Having tried in vain to qualify his assent by a clause "saving the privileges of the Church," he signed a promise to observe them legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve, and this under sanction of an oath. But he soon found an escape from his obligations in the course taken by the pope, who annulled the Constitutions. Upon this Becket expressed contrition for his previous weakness, and tried to induce the other bishops to unite in an organised resistance. "Either this man must cease to be archbishop or I to be king," exclaimed Henry. He called a great council at Northampton, October 12, 1164, before which Becket was summoned to answer for contempt of the king's court in not appearing in a suit instituted against him respecting some lands. He was found guilty of forfeiting the fealty he had sworn to the king; and all his goods were confiscated. He was next required to give an account of the revenues of all the benefices that had been under his management, and other demands were made upon him, amounting to 44,000 marks. The assembled prelates, by the mouth of the bishop of Chichester, declared that they no longer acknowledged him as their primate, now he was a perjured traitor. He replied that he appealed to the sovereign pontiff, and that he should answer their insults by arms. attempted to overawe Henry by forcing his way into the royal presence in full pomp, with the crucifix borne before him; but he was compelled to desist, and he requested the king's permission to leave Northampton. Henry refused; and, as he had already rejected Becket's offer to pay 2000 marks in satisfaction of the demands upon him, it became evident that he was bent on the

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