The preambles to all the laws of Ethelbert, Ina, Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmond, Edgar, Ethelred, and Edward the Confessor; even those to the laws of Canute though a kind of conqueror, put this matter beyond controversy, and carry proofs every where of a limited and legal government. But who were the constituent members of this wittenagemot has not been determined with certainty by antiquaries. It is agreed that the bishops and abbots[*] were an essential part; and it is also evident, from the tenor of those ancient laws, that the wittenagemot enacted statutes which regulated the ecclesiastical as well as civil government, and that those dangerous principles, by which the church is totally severed from the state, were hitherto unknown to the Anglo-Saxons.[**] It also appears that the aldermen or governors of counties, who, after the Danish times, were often called earls,[***] [7] were admitted into this council, and gave their consent to the public statutes. But besides the prelates and aldermen, there is also mention of the wites, or wisemen, as a component part of the wittenagemot; but who these were is not so clearly ascertained by the laws or the history of that period. The matter would probably be of difficult discussion, even were it examined impartially; but as our modern parties have chosen to divide on this point, the question has been disputed with the greater obstinacy, and the arguments on both sides have become, on that account, the more captious and deceitful. Our monarchical faction maintain that these “wites,” or “sapientes,” were the judges, or men learned in the law: the popular faction assert them to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the commons. The expressions employed by all ancient historians in mentioning the wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition. The members are almost always called the “principes, satrapæ, optimates, magnates, proceres;” terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude the commons. The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were so small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on the great men,[****] that it seems nowise probable they would be admitted as a part of the national councils. The commons are well known to have had no share in the governments established by the Franks, Burgundians, and other northern nations; and we may conclude that the Saxons, who remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than those tribes, would never think of conferring such an extraordinary privilege on trade and industry. [* Sometimes abbesses were admitted; at least they often sign the king’s charters or grants. Spelm. Gloss. in verbo Parliamentum.] [** Wilkins, passim.] [*** See note G, at the end of the volume.] [**** Brady’s Treatise of English Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, etc.]