A Student's History of England, v. 1: B.C. 55-A.D. 1509: From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VIIGardiner, Samuel Rawson
History
A Student's History of England, v. 1: B.C. 55-A.D. 1509: From the Earliest Times to the Death of King Edward VII
Gardiner, Samuel Rawson
Great Britain -- History; Great Britain -- History -- Outlines, syllabi, etc.
11. =English and Welsh.=--The bulk of the population on the eastern
and southern coasts was undoubtedly English. English institutions and
English language took firm root. The conquerors looked on the Britons
with the utmost contempt, naming them Welsh, a name which no Briton
thought of giving to himself, but which Germans had been in the habit
of applying somewhat contemptuously to the Celts on the Continent. So
far as British words have entered into the English language at all,
they have been words such as _gown_ or _curd_, which are likely to
have been used by women, or words such as _cart_ or _pony_, which are
likely to have been used by agricultural labourers, and the evidence
of language may therefore be adduced in favour of the view that many
women and many agricultural labourers were spared by the conquerors.
12. =The Township and the Hundred.=--The smallest political community
of the new settlers was the village, or, as it is commonly called, the
township, which is still represented by the parish, the parish being
merely a township in which ecclesiastical institutions have been
maintained whilst political institutions have ceased to exist. The
freemen of the township met to settle small questions between
themselves, under the presidency of their reeve or headman. More
important cases were brought before the hundred-moot, or meeting of
the hundred, a district which had been inhabited, or was supposed to
have been inhabited, either by a hundred kindred groups of the
original settlers or by the families of a hundred warriors. This
hundred-moot was held once a month, and was attended by four men and
the reeve from every township, and also by the Eorls and Thegns living
in the hundred. It not only settled disputes about property, but gave
judgment in criminal cases as well.
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