because these feuds, if we may so call them, had not then come to be inheritances,--which circumstance of inheritance gave rise to the whole feudal system. With the Anglo-Saxons the feuds continued to the last but a sort of pay or salary of office. The _trinoda necessitas_, so much spoken of, which was to attend the king in his expeditions, and to contribute to the building of bridges and repair of highways, never bound the lands by way of tenure, but as a political regulation, which equally affected every class and condition of men and every species of possession. [Sidenote: Gavelkind.] The manner of succeeding to lands in England at this period was, as we have observed, by Gavelkind,--an equal distribution amongst the children, males and females. The ancient Northern nations had but an imperfect notion of political power. That the possessor of the land should be the governor of it was a simple idea; and their schemes extended but little further. It was not so in the Greek and Italian commonwealths. In those the property of the land was in all respects similar to that of goods, and had nothing of jurisdiction annexed to it; the government there was a merely political institution. Amongst such a people the custom of distribution could be of no ill consequence, because it only affected property. But gavelkind amongst the Saxons was very prejudicial; for, as government was annexed to a certain possession in land, this possession, which was continually changing, kept the government in a very fluctuating state: so that their civil polity had in it an essential evil, which contributed to the sickly condition in which the Anglo-Saxon state always remained, as well as to its final dissolution. FOOTNOTES: [49] They had no other nobility; yet several families amongst them were considered as noble. [50] Arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quàm civitas suffecturum probaverit.--Tacitus de Mor. Germ. 13. [51] Nihil autem neque publicæ neque privatæ rei nisi armati agunt.--Tacitus de Mor. Germ. 13. [52] Cæteri robustioribus ac jam pridem probatis aggregantur.--Id. ibid. [53] Illum defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriæ ejus as signare, præcipuum sacramentum est.--Id. 14. [54] Deputed authority, guardianship, &c, not known to the Northern nations; they gained this idea by intercourse with the Romans. [55] Jud. Civ. Lund. apud Wilk. post p. 68. [56] Spelman of Feuds, ch. 5. [57] Fuerunt etiam in conquestu liberi homines, qui libere tenuerunt tenementa sua per libera servitia vel per liberas consuetudines.--For the original of copyholds, see Bracton, Lib. I. fol. 7.