DOCSLIB.ORG

A Short History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom. the Polity of the English

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Short History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom. the Polity of the English ma LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY MRS. JOSEPH HOWARD BARNARD A SHORT HISTORY OF ANGLO-SAXON FREEDOM A SHORT HISTORY OF ANGLO-SAXON FREEDOM THE POLITY OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING EACE OUTLINED IN ITS INCEPTION, DEVELOPMENT, DIFFUSION, AND PRESENT CONDITION BY JAMES K. HOSMER Propkssob in Washington University; Author op "A Lipb of Samuel Adams," "A Life of Young Sir Henry Vane," etc. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. PREFACE. In this book an effort has been made to compress a sketch of constitutional history for a period of nearly two thousand years, from the time of the Teu- tons of Csesar and Tacitus to the British Empire and the United States of 1890. It is not the polity of any single people that is outlined, but that of the English-speaking race, that body to-day perhaps one hundred and twenty millions strong, scattered in sev- eral nationalities actual or incipient, which upon all the continents and all the great islands of the world, stands now so in the foreground of attention. It is a polity one and the same in its essence in England, in the United States, in Australia, in Canada : one and the same in its essence, moreover, as viewed in the institutions of to-day and in those of the North Germans of the time of Christ. As Sir Francis Pal- " grave says : The new building has been raised upon the old the institutions of one groundwork ; age have always been modelled and formed from those of the preceding, and the lineal descent has never been interrupted or disturbed." Anglo-Saxon freedom is most simply and comprehensively stated in the phrase " of Abraham Lincoln, government of the people, by the people, and for the people." In its long history VI PREFACE. there have been periods of temporary submergence, adaptation to the needs of ever vaster multitudes and higher civilizations, manifold development and elabo- ration : one spirit, however, has survived through all, apparent in the deliberations of a modern Congress or Parliament, as also it was apparent in the ancient folk-moots, where the free ceorls chose their army leadei-s and regulated the life in their marks. While works upon the con^itutional history, both of England and America, abound, they for the most part appeal, both as to style and size, rather to the scholar and the statesman, than to the general reader and the youthful student. Moreover, in such works it has too seldom happened that the constitutional his- tory of the English-speaking race has been regarded en solidarite : but in this way it is both proper and expedient to regard that history. England and Amer- ica are mother and child; the polity of the latter in its origin is a mere outflow from that of the former, the two constitutional streams since the divergence flowing constantly parallel and mutually reacting. Our frequent complaint is that Englishmen fail to us fail to them. understand ; just so, we understand Says the Westminster Review^ for March, 1889: "Eng- land's sternest, coldest, most critical censors, I have found descendants of the old settlers among ; surely they retain something of ancient Puritan bitterness. The source of estrangement I am inclined to trace largely to the fact that the average American reads no history but United States history, and he can hardly be said to study that." Certainly, to set right the "average American," and also the average Eng- lishman, is a task worth essaying. There ought to be PREFACE. Vll room for a book succinct and simple in its terms, which should tell to busy men and to youth in the of freedom for as class-room, the stoiy Anglo-Saxon ; " James Bryce has said : It is a matter of the first con- sequence that the relation to one another of the two branches of the English-speaking race should be more fully understood and realized." In the execution of such a task the difficulties are not small. How to preserve a proper historical per- spective while viewing upon so reduced a scale such a multitude of events and figures ? What guides to select in threading one's way through the long ages ? There is no period through which one must not pro- ceed with care, and the embarrassments are perhaps as great with respect to times close at hand as with respect to times remote. While this book was in preparation, the establishment of the County Councils has restored to the English shires their ancient local since it was for the self-government ; ready printer six Commonwealths have been added to the American Union as it awaits its an ; publication, Anglo-Saxon protectorate extends itself more and more widely over Africa, and the federation of Australia may become any month an accomplished fact. These are all events noteworthy in the history of Anglo-Saxon freedom, as are still others of wliich the newspapei-s weekly give report. How to catch them accurately and in due proportion ? As to remote ages, the darkness due to the remoteness is further deepened by the con- troversies of scholars. The employment of represen- tation has commonly been held to be characteristic of societies in the most distant Anglo-Saxon epochs ; but this honor is now denied to them by authorities Viu PREFACE. deserving of high respect, who find no good evidence of the existence of a representative system until after the Norman conquest. Mr. Frederic Seebohm, in his " English Village Communities," fails to see that the Anglo-Saxon invaders brought with them any free- dom at all, as they set up their tuns and scires in their new home : in the settlements that were estab- lished a lord ruled as master, with a society under in a condition of the free com- him villenage ; village munity was by no means the type, but from the first a marked feudalism in which the mass of men were serfs. Still more sweepingly, Mr. H. C. Coote, in his "Romans of Britain," will have it that the Anglo- Saxons transmitted to us not only no freedom, but nothing else. They were simply a horde of invading savages, exercising for a time dominion over a people they had conquered, who much surpassed them in civilization, a horde which was at length annihi- lated by the Danes, leaving no trace of itself or its influence; for, thinks Mr. Coote, all that we have called Anglo-Saxon, in blood, tongue, or institutions, ought to be ascribed to a different stock, and has received the name only through mistake. While at the two extremes of the subject embarrassments thus abound, certain intermediate periods are scarcely more free. In the English colonization of America, for instance, the extent to which the new country followed the precedents of the old is not a matter " upon which all are agreed. The new historical school," of which E. A. Freeman may be regarded as the founder, and of which the most characteristic publications in America are the historical and politi- PREFACE. IX cal tracts of Johns Hopkins University, edited by Prof. Herbert B. Adams, is inclined to trace in mi- nute detail in American societies the usages of the old world, a course for which it has been sharply censured, sometimes by scholars of reputa- tion. Under these circumstances, if a time were ever likely to arrive when doubtful questions will be any less in doubt, it would be prudent to defer the execution of such a task as the present one until that time. What probability is there, however, that the mighty march of Anglo-Saxondom will in these ages, ever press less confusingly upon the contemporaneous chronicler; or that as regards the past, the discord of authorities will ever be harmonized ? The task is worth execu- the time as as that is to ting ; propitious any likely arise. The present writer, fortifying his judgment as he could, has written his book, following the lead of the scholars most accepted. The numerous foot- notes Avill show, he trusts, that he has not been negli- gent in his reading. However open to question his conclusions may sometimes appear, they are not, at any rate, hap-hazard, but referable to respectable sources. The writer desires to express his obligation to a number of helpers. He is indebted to Mr. Goldwin Smith and to Mr. James Bryce for letters expressing sympathy with the main idea he has had at heart, to illustrate, namely, the substantial identity of the great English-speaking nations, in stock, and in the spirit of their social and political institutions, as as in and the that these well tongue ; expediency nations should, in John Bright's phrase, become one X PREFACE. people. The writer has received such a letter also from the venerable Sir George Grey of Auckland ,at different times formerly, governor-general of New- Zealand, of an Australian province, and of South Africa, and in those high positions so honorably iden- tified with the rise of an English-speaking world in the South Pacific. Dr. W. G. Hammond, Dean of the St. Louis Law School, Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, late librarian of the Boston Public Library, and Prof. W. W. Folwell of the Univereity of Minnesota, have given the writer the benefit of their criticisms upon several of his chapters, and helped him to important books which he could not otherwise have obtained. To Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., owners of the " " " copyright of the Life of Samuel Adams and Life of Young Sir Henry Vane," the writer is under obli- gation, for permission to quote from earlier work of his own bearing upon the present subject.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland Published by James Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow
    i^ttiin •••7 * tuwn 1 1 ,1 vir tiiTiv^Vv5*^M òlo^l^!^^ '^- - /f^K$ , yt A"-^^^^- /^AO. "-'no.-' iiuUcotettt>tnc -DOcholiiunc THE NORSE INFLUENCE ON CELTIC SCOTLAND PUBLISHED BY JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, inblishcre to the anibersitg. MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. New York, • • The Macmillan Co. Toronto, • - • The Mactnillan Co. of Canada. London, • . - Simpkin, Hamilton and Co. Cambridse, • Bowes and Bowes. Edinburgh, • • Douglas and Foults. Sydney, • • Angus and Robertson. THE NORSE INFLUENCE ON CELTIC SCOTLAND BY GEORGE HENDERSON M.A. (Edin.), B.Litt. (Jesus Coll., Oxon.), Ph.D. (Vienna) KELLY-MACCALLUM LECTURER IN CELTIC, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW EXAMINER IN SCOTTISH GADHELIC, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY I9IO Is buaine focal no toic an t-saoghail. A word is 7nore lasting than the world's wealth. ' ' Gadhelic Proverb. Lochlannaich is ànnuinn iad. Norsemen and heroes they. ' Book of the Dean of Lismore. Lochlannaich thi'eun Toiseach bhiir sgéil Sliochd solta ofrettmh Mhamiis. Of Norsemen bold Of doughty mould Your line of oldfrom Magnus. '' AIairi inghean Alasdair Ruaidh. PREFACE Since ever dwellers on the Continent were first able to navigate the ocean, the isles of Great Britain and Ireland must have been objects which excited their supreme interest. To this we owe in part the com- ing of our own early ancestors to these isles. But while we have histories which inform us of the several historic invasions, they all seem to me to belittle far too much the influence of the Norse Invasions in particular. This error I would fain correct, so far as regards Celtic Scotland.
    [Show full text]
  • English Hundred-Names
    l LUNDS UNIVERSITETS ARSSKRIFT. N. F. Avd. 1. Bd 30. Nr 1. ,~ ,j .11 . i ~ .l i THE jl; ENGLISH HUNDRED-NAMES BY oL 0 f S. AND ER SON , LUND PHINTED BY HAKAN DHLSSON I 934 The English Hundred-Names xvn It does not fall within the scope of the present study to enter on the details of the theories advanced; there are points that are still controversial, and some aspects of the question may repay further study. It is hoped that the etymological investigation of the hundred-names undertaken in the following pages will, Introduction. when completed, furnish a starting-point for the discussion of some of the problems connected with the origin of the hundred. 1. Scope and Aim. Terminology Discussed. The following chapters will be devoted to the discussion of some The local divisions known as hundreds though now practi­ aspects of the system as actually in existence, which have some cally obsolete played an important part in judicial administration bearing on the questions discussed in the etymological part, and in the Middle Ages. The hundredal system as a wbole is first to some general remarks on hundred-names and the like as shown in detail in Domesday - with the exception of some embodied in the material now collected. counties and smaller areas -- but is known to have existed about THE HUNDRED. a hundred and fifty years earlier. The hundred is mentioned in the laws of Edmund (940-6),' but no earlier evidence for its The hundred, it is generally admitted, is in theory at least a existence has been found.
    [Show full text]
  • Transactions Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural
    TRANSACTIONS of the DUMFRIESSHIRE AND GALLOWAY NATURAL HISTORY and ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY FOUNDED 20 NOVEMBER 1862 THIRD SERIES VOLUME 91 XCI Editors: DAVID F. DEVEREUX JAMES FOSTER ISSN 0141-1292 2017 DUMFRIES Published by the Council of the Society Office-Bearers 2016–2017 and Fellows of the Society President Dr Jeremy Brock Vice Presidents Mrs P.G. Williams, Mr R. Copland, Mr D. Dutton and Mr M. Cook Fellows of the Society Mr A.D. Anderson, Mr J.H.D. Gair, Dr J.B. Wilson, Mr K.H. Dobie, Mrs E. Toolis, Dr D.F. Devereux, Mrs M. Williams, Dr F. Toolis, Mr L. Murray and Mr L.J. Masters Hon. Secretary Mr J.L. Williams, Merkland, Kirkmahoe, Dumfries DG1 1SY Hon. Membership Secretary Mr S. McCulloch, 28 Main Street, New Abbey, Dumfries DG2 8BY Hon. Treasurer Mrs A. Weighill Hon. Librarian Mr R. Coleman, 2 Loreburn Park, Dumfries DG1 1LS Hon. Institutional Subscriptions Secretary Mrs A. Weighill Hon. Editors Mrs E. Kennedy, Nether Carruchan, Troqueer, Dumfries DG2 8LY Dr J. Foster (Webmaster), 21 Maxwell Street, Dumfries DG2 7AP Hon. Syllabus Conveners Miss S. Ratchford, Tadorna, Hollands Farm Road, Caerlaverock, Dumfries DG1 4RS Mrs A. Clarke, 4 Redhall Road, Templand, Lockerbie DG11 1TF Hon. Curators Mrs J. Turner and Miss S. Ratchford Hon. Outings Organisers Mr D. Dutton Ordinary Members Dr Jeanette Brock, Mr D. Scott and Mr J. McKinnell CONTENTS A Case of Mistaken Identity? Monenna and Ninian in Galloway and the Central Belt by Oisin Plumb .................................................................. 9 Angles and Britons around Trusty’s Hill: some onomastic considerations by Alan James ....................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Singing up the Country Reveals That Bob Trubshawhas Been Researching a Surprising Variety of Different Topics Since His Last Book Six Years Ago
    Singing Up the Country reveals that Bob Trubshawhas been researching a surprising variety of different topics since his last book six years ago. From Anglo-Saxon place-names to early Greek philosophy - and much in between - he creates an interwoven approach to the prehistoric landscape, creating a ‘mindscape’ that someone in NeolithicBritain might just recognise. This is a mindscapewhere sound, swans and rivers help us to understand the megalithic monuments. Continuing from where scholarship usually stops and using instead the approaches of storytelling, the final chapter weaves this wide variety of ideas together as a ‘songline’ for the Aveburylandscape. This re-mythologising of the land follows two ‘dreamtime’ ancestors along the Kennetvalley to the precursors of Aveburyhengeand SilburyHill. Few writers have Bob Trubshaw’sbreadth of knowledge combined with a mythopoeticability to construct a modern day story that re-enchants the landscape. Singing Up the Country will be an inspiration to all those interested in prehistory, mythology or the Neolithicmonuments of the World Heritage Site at Avebury. Previous books by Bob Trubshaw published by Heart of Albion: Explore Folklore Explore Mythology Sacred Places: Prehistory and popular imagination How to Write and Publish Local and Family History Successfully Little-known Leicestershire and Rutland Rutland Village by Village Good Gargoyle Guide: medieval carvings of Leicestershire and Rutland Leicestershire Legends retold by Black Annis Previous books edited by Bob Trubshaw published by Heart of Albion: Explore Phantom Black Dogs Singing Up the Country The songlinesof Aveburyand beyond Bob Trubshaw Heart of Albion Singing Up the Country: The songlinesof Aveburyand beyond Bob Trubshaw Cover photograph by Bob Trubshaw Sunrise at south entrance to Aveburyhengewith jackdaws, November 2007 Two ravens sit on Odin’sshoulders and speak into his ear all the news they see or hear.
    [Show full text]
  • History of the English People, Volume I by John Richard Green
    History of the English People, Volume I by John Richard Green CHAPTER I THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF BRITAIN 449-577 Old England For the fatherland of the English race we must look far away from England itself. In the fifth century after the birth of Christ the one country which we know to have borne the name of Angeln or the Engleland lay within the district which is now called Sleswick, a district in the heart of the peninsula that parts the Baltic from the northern seas. Its pleasant pastures, its black-timbered homesteads, its prim little townships looking down on inlets of purple water, were then but a wild waste of heather and sand, girt along the coast with a sunless woodland broken here and there by meadows that crept down to the marshes and the sea. The dwellers in this district, however, seem to have been merely an outlying fragment of what was called the Engle or English folk, the bulk of whom lay probably in what is now Lower Hanover 1-010]and Oldenburg. On one side of them the Saxons of Westphalia held the land from the Weser to the Rhine; on the other the Eastphalian Saxons stretched away to the Elbe. North again of the fragment of the English folk in Sleswick lay another kindred tribe, the Jutes, whose name is still preserved in their district of Jutland. Engle, Saxon, and Jute all belonged to the same Low-German branch of the Teutonic family; and at the moment when history discovers them they were being drawn together by the ties of a common blood, common speech, common social and political institutions.
    [Show full text]
  • A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: Cosmography & Anglo-Saxon Ship Burials
    A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: Cosmography & Anglo-Saxon Ship Burials Jeremy Taylor & Mark Taylor VERSION 2 (2020) A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: V2 (2020) 1 WWW.ARCANELANDSCAPE.COM CONTENTS Introduction PAGE 3 to 4 Introductory Concepts PAGE 5 to 14 Context PAGE 15 to 26 Funerary Rites PAGE 27 to 31 The Proposed Solstice Alignment PAGE 32 to 34 Design Principles PAGE 35 to 44 Sutton Hoo PAGE 45 to 55 Snape PAGE 56 to 60 Eastbridge PAGE 61 to 62 Secondary Sites PAGE 63 to 67 Tertiary Sites PAGE 68 to 70 Cosmology PAGE 71 to 79 Golden Gates PAGE 80 to 84 Theories PAGE 85 to 88 Bibliography & Thanks PAGE 89 to 105 A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: V2 (2020) 2 WWW.ARCANELANDSCAPE.COM INTRODUCTION The period in Britain between 400 and 600 A.D. is referred to as the Dark Ages; this was because recorded history ceased following the departure of the Romans in 410 A.D. Even though this period spanned eight to ten generations, we barely know a handful of people from this era. Additionally, the written sources that we do have are from the minor fragments forming only two or three written sources [1]. Our modern day skyline is still peppered by the echoes and traces of our ancestors, through their use of temple worship on and in the landscape; however, the absence of any ‘official status’ through an accurate literary record means there is no ‘neat’ formalised account of to whom these temples were built to honour, or clarity behind these old belief systems. “Writing only came with the Church, and the conversion of the Old English had taken place before they were able to put down their ancient beliefs and myths” [2].
    [Show full text]
  • Through Scotland
    « WE'LL WANDER SCOTLAND THOROUGH:' PacMf ALEDONIAN RAILWAY X. Millar, Qenera/Manager. Written by George Eyre-Todd Fpom Glasgow lo EcLinB&pgf?, KBepcUen, Invepnegg, PeeBle?, Moffat, Dfcinvfpie:g, Capitis, Stpanpaep, T^e Circle, Tf>e: Tpo^ae^, Tjjg Seottigf? hoe^ - OBKJ5, e^e^e . ancl . THE WESTERN JHISWIaWDS. Maclure,]Macdonald & Co., jfcrnatiunfal printers to lift late Bugsn ©tctjoria, Glasgow. THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH — — SCOTLAND. Mountain and mist, lone glen and murmuring stream. The shaggy forest, and the grey hillside These are thy features, Scotland—these the pride Of those that love thee, and thy minstrels' theme. For partial nature that denied to thee The sun of England and the soil of France Hath clothed thee in the garment of romance, That dearer for that dearth thy face might be. Proud mother, whose least son with reverence turns To greet thee, —land of Wallace, Knox, and Burns Thy rugged hills are sacred from the feet Of heroes ; and thy bards (a countless throng) With tuneful tribute make the charm complete — Each moor a memory, and each stream a song. —Robert Reid, * * Contents* * * To Merrie Carlisle (to Ayr, via Douglasdale ; to Biggar PAge and Peebles; to Dumfries; and to Annan), - - - 7 To Falls of Clyde and Tillietudlem, .... 40 Through the Covenanters' Country (to Hamilton and Lesmahagow ; to Strathaven and Darvel ; to Busby and East Kilbride), 45 To Leadhills and Wanlockhead, 50 To the Shores of Clyde, - 53 To the Island of Arran, 65 Through the Rob Roy Country, 70 To Edinburgh, 84 ' Edinburgh to Stirling, - 94 To Stirling Town, 96 To Oban and the West Highlands, - - - - - 104 Through the Trossachs, going via Callander, - - - 118 To Ballachulish and Glencoe, 128 Down Strathearn, - 133 Down Strathtay, 137 Down Loch Awe, 142 To Perth, the Central Highlands, and Inverness (to .
    [Show full text]
  • A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: Cosmography & Anglo-Saxon Ship Burials
    A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: Cosmography & Anglo-Saxon Ship Burials Jeremy Taylor & Mark Taylor VERSION 1 (2019) A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: V1 (2019) 1 WWW.ARCANELANDSCAPE.COM CONTENTS Introduction PAGE 3 to 4 Introductory Concepts PAGE 5 to 14 Context PAGE 15 to 26 Funerary Rites PAGE 27 to 31 e Proposed Solstice Alignment PAGE 32 to 34 Design Principles PAGE 35 to 44 Sutton Hoo PAGE 45 to 55 Snape PAGE 56 to 60 Eastbridge PAGE 61 to 62 Secondary Sites PAGE 63 to 67 Tertiary Sites PAGE 68 to 70 Cosmology PAGE 71 to 79 Golden Gates PAGE 80 to 84 eories PAGE 85 to 88 Bibliography & anks PAGE 89 to 105 A RITUAL LANDSCAPE CONSIDERED: V1 (2019) 2 WWW.ARCANELANDSCAPE.COM INTRODUCTION e period in Britain between 400 and 600 A.D. is referred to as the Dark Ages; this was because recorded history ceased following the departure of the Romans in 410 A.D. Even though this period spanned eight to ten generations, we barely know a handful of people from this era. Additionally, the written sources that we do have are from the minor fragments forming only two or three written sources [1]. Our modern day skyline is still peppered by the echoes and traces of our ancestors, through their use of temple worship on and in the landscape; however, the absence of any ‘o cial status’ through an accurate literary record means there is no ‘neat’ formalised account of to whom these temples were built to honour, or clarity behind these old belief systems. “Writing only came with the Church, and the conversion of the Old English had taken place before they were able to put down their ancient beliefs and myths” [2].
    [Show full text]
  • Download Rethinking Anglo-Saxon Shrines for FREE
    Rethinking Anglo-Saxon Shrines a cosmologicaland topographical view of hohs and hlaws second edition The Twilight Age Volume Five Bob Trubshaw Heart of Albion About The Twilight Age series Not that many decades ago English history between The Twilight Age series the fifth the eleventh centuries was deemed the ‘Dark Ages’, largely because of the lack of evidence. Volume 1: Continuity of Worldviewsin Anglo-Saxon England Much has changed, and scholarship has shed considerable light on the later centuries. However by then many parts of Britain were evolving into Volume 2: Souls, Spirits and Deities: Continuity from Anglo-Scandinavianculture. paganism in early Christianity Evidence for the Anglo-Germanicfifth and sixth centuries is still scarce and difficult to interpret, so Volume 3: Continuity of Anglo-Saxon Iconography the epithet ‘Dark Ages’ is still apt. The years in between occupy a comparative ‘twilight zone’, fascinating because of numerous social changes, not Volume 4: Minstersand Valleys: A topographical least the various cultural transitions which ultimately comparison of seventh and eighth century land led to Christianity being the dominant religion. use in Leicestershire and Wiltshire The period spanning the seventh and eighth centuries and, sometimes, the decades either side Volume 5: Rethinking Anglo-Saxon Shrines: A cosmological can be thought of as the ‘Twilight Age’. This series and topographical view of hohs and hlaws of publications combines available evidence from archaeologists, historians and place-name scholars. This evidence is combined with a broader mix of paradigms than those usually adopted by early medievalists, including topography, cosmology, iconography and ethnography – especially current approaches to comparative religion.
    [Show full text]
  • George Neilson, "Trial by Combat" (1890)
    This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com 3 2044 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY TRIAL BY COMBAT, BY GEORGE NEILSON * GLASGOW —WILLIAM HODGE & c6., 26 BOTH WELL STREET 0 * : . JnscrtbeO, IN GRATITUDE AND RESPECT, TO ROBERT BERRY, Esquire, M.A., CANTAB. ; LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; LL.D., EDIN. ; FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF LAW IN GLASGOW UNIVERSITY ; NOW SHERIFF OF LANARKSHIRE. PREFACE. This account of the judicial duel in England and Scotland has grown out of general antiquarian studies. A few facts casually gleaned furnished the staple of a paper read to the Glasgow Juridical Society in the spring of 1888. Subsequently the quest for material was systematically pursued. The evidence gathered seemed to make decisively for several new and relatively important historical con clusions. In support of these a dangerous ambition is now gratified — to break a lance in the lists of history. If debts of gratitude were mortgages 'Trial by Combat' would enter the world heavily burdened. My chief purpose in writing a preface is to register the more considerable of my obligations. To Professor Frederic W. Maitland of Cambridge I owe warm thanks for direct help in dealing with the early English duel of law. That section is a very small part of the wide field of 13th century English viii PREFACE. law which the editor of 'Bracton's Note Book' has made so peculiarly his own. I cannot forget the friendly and generous spirit of his criticisms.
    [Show full text]
  • the Hundred-N Ames the South-Eastern Counties
    . THE HUNDRED-N AMES OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN COUNTIES I I ii;li! :/1, I :1 ill~ I iidlill' , ;1·"I" , Buckinghamshire The most interesting feature of the history of the Buckinghamshire hundreds is the grouping together of the Domesday hundreds of the county in threes, so that the nine modern hundreds correspond to 18 Domesday hundreds. The amalgamation seems to date approximately from the middle of the 13th century, though the hundreds may have been grouped together in this way as early as Domesday Book (VHBk I. 226 and reference). The modern Buckingham hd contains the Domesday hds of Stodlald, Rovelai I' and Lam2la, Ashendon those of Vofesdune, Tichesela and Essedene, lil~ Aylesbury those of Stanes, Riseberg and Elesberie, Cottesloe those of ',''',1 '1 i Mursalai, Erlai and Coteslau, and Newport those of Moleslou, Sigela,i and :"11' Bonestou. The three hundreds of southern Buckinghamshire, Desborough, Burnham and Stoke, were also grouped together as 'the Chiltern Hundreds', but here each hundred retained its separate identity. The grouping of the hundreds in threes has a parallel in the Worcestershire and Warwickshire 'ship-sokes', on which see Engl. Hundr. Names XIX, PNWa XIX, H. M. Cam in Hist. Ess. in Honour of J. Tait, 14 f_ The north-western scarp of the ::,'. Chilterns forms a barrier betwecp the J1l.'~greds of the Vale of Aylesbury I!A. 1.T .'"1\ 'Cr.,,: .and the Chiltern hundreds, though, as 'noted by Davies (Home Counties Magazine 6. 143 f.), the hundreds immediately north of the Chilterns all extend for a varying distance south-east of the Chiltern escarpment, thus giving to each hundred a share of each kind of soil.
    [Show full text]
  • 978-1-926748-79-5.Pdf
    This is a reproduction of a book from the McGill University Library collection. Title: The dawn in Britain Author: Doughty, Charles Montagu, 1843-1926 Publisher, year: London : Duckworth, 1906 The pages were digitized as they were. The original book may have contained pages with poor print. Marks, notations, and other marginalia present in the original volume may also appear. For wider or heavier books, a slight curvature to the text on the inside of pages may be noticeable. ISBN of reproduction: 978-1-926748-79-5 This reproduction is intended for personal use only, and may not be reproduced, re-published, or re-distributed commercially. For further information on permission regarding the use of this reproduction contact McGill University Library. McGill University Library www.mcgill.ca/library \J • hrirxr^ *^-*L_ THE DAWN IN BRITAIN All rights reserved The Dawn in Britain BY CHARLES M. DOUGHTY AUTHOR OF ' TRAVELS IN ARABIA DESERTA ' VOLUME I LONDON : DUCKWORTH & CO. 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN I906 Edinburgh: T. and A, CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty BOOK I ARGUMENT THE SUBJECT OF THIS POEM THE ISLE lies empty and desolate. A people of the Gaulish Main, chosen out, by lot, overfare to Britain. SAMOTH is duke and father of the new Island-nation. Sarron, the Star, succeeds him. Marriage of father Sarron's daughters ; and that sire's death. After him his ten sons-in-law rule the Britons. After their time, and being now strife among the island tribes, Dunwallon is chosen royal warden of the nation, as Samoth, erewhile, was. Dunwallon gives his people laws.
    [Show full text]