If the ceorls ever did form an integral part of the legislature in the kingdom of Kent, the whole question is settled. But I do not contemplate the thanes in Kent acting here as a legislative body: that is, I do not believe Æðelstán’s witan in Wessex to have passed a law, and then his witan in Kent to have accepted or continued it. I believe his witan from all England to have made certain enactments, which the proper officers brought down to the various shires, and in the shiremoots there took pledge of the shire-thanes that they accepted and would abide by the premises; just as in the case quoted on the preceding page. And this is the more striking because there is every reason to suppose that the witena gemót whose acts the shire-thanes of Kent thus accepted was actually holden at Feversham in that county. But it is further to be observed that the document we possess is a late Latin translation of the original sent to Æðelstán: I will venture to assert that in that original the words used were, “ealle scírþegnas on Cent, ge eorl ge ceorl,” or perhaps “ge twelfhynde ge twihynde.” Again, there is no reason to suppose that the ceorls did _not_ form an integrant part of the shiremoot, the representative of the ancient, independent legislature. A full century later than the date of the council of Feversham, they continued to do so in the same kingdom or, at that period, earldom: and it will be readily admitted that during those hundred years the tendency of society was not to increase the power or improve the condition of the ceorl. Between 1013 and 1020 we thus find Cnut addressing the authorities in Kent (Cod. Dipl. No. 731):—“Cnut the king sends friendly greeting to archbishop Lýfing, bishop Godwine, abbot Ælfmǽr, Æðelwine the sheriff, Æðelríc, and all my thanes, both twelve-hundred and two-hundred men,—ealle míne þegnas twelfhynde and twihynde:”—in other words, both eorl and ceorl, nobilis and ignobilis, or as the witan of Æðelstán have it, in the Norman translation, comites et villani. The nature of Cnut’s writ, which is addressed to the authorities of the county, the archbishop and sheriff, shows clearly that the thanes in question are not those royal officers called cyninges þegnas—who could never be two-hundred men—but the scírþegnas. These are of frequent occurrence in Anglosaxon documents. The scírgemót at Ægelnóðes stán (about 1038) was attended by Æðelstán the bishop, Ranig the ealdorman, Bryning the sheriff and all the thanes in Herefordshire. Cod. Dipl. No. 755. A sale by Stigand was witnessed by all the scírþegnas in Hampshire; that is, it was a public instrument completed in the shiremoot. Cod. Dipl. No. 949. Again a grant of Stigand was witnessed about 1053 by various authorities in Hampshire, including Eádsige the sheriff and all the scírþegnas. Cod. Dipl. No. 1337: and similarly a third of the same prelate, Cod. Dipl. No. 820.