In order to arrive at a clear comprehension of the taxing power of the Witan as compared with that subsequently exercised by the English Parliament, it is essential that one understands the make-up of the Anglo-Saxon body. As its name implies, the Witan was an assembly of the wise. Its organization was not based upon the ownership of land, nor was there any rule held to undeviatingly which prescribed qualifications for membership. Generally speaking it was composed of the king and his family, who were known as the Athelings; the national officers, both ecclesiastical and civil, a group which included the bishops and abbots, the ealdormen or chief men of the shires, and the ministri or administrative officers; and finally, the royal nominees, men who are not comprehensible in the above classes, but who recommended themselves to the king by reason of unusual or expert knowlege.[12] It is observable, then, that this assembly was by the nature of its composition aristocratic. That it was not representative in the modern sense of the term is as readily apparent. With certain restrictions the official members--the bishops, ealdormen, the ministri--were coöpted by the existing members, while the remainder were either present by right of birth or invited to attend by reason of peculiar attainment. Nevertheless, the Witenagemot was commonly believed to be capable of expressing the national will. It had the power of electing the king and the complementary power of deposition, and exercised every power of government, making laws, administering them, adjudging cases arising under them, and levying taxes for the public need.[13] Such in brief was the body which in 991 assented to the levy of the Danegeld. The act was of great importance; by it the Witan both exercised a right which was not to be vindicated in its completeness for the space of seven hundred years, but it laid a trap for those who, in the time of Charles the First, should be struggling for the attainment of that right, for in their action lay the precedent which the Stuart lawyers should warp into a pretext for the levy of ship-money. II FEUDAL AND ROYAL TAXATION THE NORMAN AND THE ANGEVIN KINGS 1066-1215 [Character of the Norman Rule] UNDER the Saxon kings the structure of government was only half built. The foundation, laid in the shire and hundred moots, the townships, and the incidental organisms of local government, was solid and capable of upholding a heavy superstructure. But the Saxons scarcely built further. They left to the Norman kings, peculiarly fitted to their work by temperament and habit, the task of setting up a strong central government. The price which the nation paid for it was the loss of what right it had possessed of assenting to taxation.