“And se cyng hæfde ðǽr on morgen witena gemót, ⁊ cwæð hine útlage.” Chron. Sax. an. 1052. “And wæs ðá witena gemót.” Ib. an. 1052. “Ða hæfde Eádwerd cyning witena gemót on Lundene.” Ib. an. 1050. Footnote 500: Cod. Dipl. No. 116. It is probable that even in strictly ecclesiastical synods, the king had a presidency at least, as head of the church in his dominions. In Willibald’s life of Boniface we are told:—“Regnante Ini, Westsaxonum rege, subitanea quaedam incubuerat, nova quadam seditione exorta, necessitas, et statim synodale a primatibus aecclesiarum cum consilio praedicti regis servorum Dei factum est concilium; moxque omnibus in unum convenientibus, saluberrima de hac recenti dissentione consilii quaestio inter sacerdotales aecclesiastici ordinis gradus sapienter exoritur, et prudentiori inito consultu, fideles in Domino legatos ad archiepiscopum Cantuariae civitatis, nomine Berchtwaldum, destinandos deputarunt, ne eorum praesumptione aut temeritati adscriberetur, si quid sine tanti pontificis agerent consilio. Cumque omnis senatus et universus clericorum ordo, tam providenti peracta conlatione, consentirent, confestim rex cunctos Christi famulos adlocutus est, ut cui huius praefatae legationis nuntium inponerent, sciscitarent,” etc. Pertz, ii. 338. A more important question for us is, what were the powers of the witena gemót? It must be answered by examples in detail. 1. _First, and in general, they possessed a consultative voice, and right to consider every public act, which could be authorised by the king._ This has been attempted to be denied, but without sufficient reason. Runde, who is one of the upholders of the erroneous doctrine on this subject, appeals to the introduction of Christianity into Kent, which he perhaps justly declares to have been made without the assent of the witan[501]. But it does not at all follow that the first reception of Augustine by Æðelberht is to be considered a public act, or that it had any immediate consequences for the public law. Nor is it certain that at a later period, a meeting of the witan may not have ratified the private proceeding of the king. Æðelberht, who had some experience of Christianity from the doctrine and practice of his Frankish consort Beorhte, may have chosen to trust to the silent, gradual working of the missionaries, without courting the opposition of a heathen witena gemót, till assured of success: his court were already accustomed to the sight of a Christian bishop and clergy in Beorhte’s suite, and Augustine with his company might easily pass for a mere addition to that department of the royal household. Indeed Augustine himself does not appear to have been at all ambitious of martyrdom, and probably preferred trying the chances of a gradual progress to a stormy and perhaps fatal collision with a body of barbarians, led by a pagan and rival priesthood. The words of Beda therefore can prove nothing in the matter, except indeed