While the district whose members attend the folkmoot is still small, there is no great inconvenience in this method of proceeding. In the empire of Charlemagne attendance upon the Campus Madius, whether as soldier or councillor must have been a heavy burthen. Nor can we conceive it to have been otherwise here, as soon as counties became consolidated into kingdoms, and kingdoms into an empire. In a country overrun with forests, intersected with deep streams or extensive marshes, and but ill provided with the means of internal communication, suit and service even at the county-court must have been a hardship to the cultivator; a duty performed not without danger, and often vexatiously interfering with agricultural processes on which the hopes of the year might depend. Much more keenly would this have been felt had every freeman been called upon to attend beyond the limits of his own shire, in places distant from, and totally unknown to him: how for example would a cultivator from Essex have been likely to look upon a journey into Gloucestershire[482] at the severe season of Christmas[483], or the, to him, important farming period of Easter? What moreover could he care for general laws affecting many districts beside the one in which he lived, or for regulations applying to fractions of society in which he had no interest? for the Saxon cultivator was not then a politician; nor were general rules which embraced a whole kingdom of the same moment to him, as those which might concern the little locality in which his alod lay. Or what benefit could be expected from his attendance at deliberations which concerned parts of the country with whose mode of life and necessities he was totally unacquainted? Lastly, what evil must not have resulted to the republic by the withdrawal of whole populations from their usual places of employment, and the congregating them in a distant and unknown locality? If we consider these facts, we shall find little difficulty in imagining that any scheme which relieved him from this burthen and threw it upon stronger shoulders, would be a welcome one, and the foundation of a representative system seems laid _à priori_, and in the nature of things itself. To the rich and powerful neighbour whose absence from his farms was immaterial, while his bailiffs remained on the spot to superintend their cultivation; to the scírgeréfa, the ealdorman, the royal reeve, or royal thane, familiar with the public business, and having influence and interest with the king; to the bishop or abbot, distinguished for his wisdom as well as his station; to any or all of these he would be ready to commit the defence of his small, private interests, satisfied to be virtually represented if he were not compelled to leave the business and the enjoyments of his daily life[484]. Footnote 482: