The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A.: From the Britons of Early Times to King John — David Hume — John Shaqi
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part A.: From the Britons of Early Times to King John
David Hume · en
And beside these monthly meetings
of the hundred, there was an annual meeting, appointed for a more
general inspection of the police of the district; for the inquiry into
crimes, the correction of abuses in magistrates, and the obliging of
every person to show the decennary in which he was registered. The
people, in imitation of their ancestors, the ancient Germans, assembled
there in arms; whence a hundred was sometimes called a wapentake, and
its courts served both for the support of military discipline and for
the administration of civil justice.[***]
[* Leges St. Edw. cap. 2.]
[** Foedus Alfred. et Gothurn. apud Wilkins, cap. 3, p. 47.
Leg. Ethelstani cap. 2, apud Wilkins, p. 58. LL. Ethelr.
sect. 4. Wilkins, p. 117.]
[*** Spelman, in voce Wapentake.]
The next superior court to that of the hundred was the county court,
which met twice a year, after Michaelmas and Easter, and consisted
of the freeholders of the county, who possessed an equal vote in the
decision of causes. The bishop presided in this court, together with
the alderman; and the proper object of the court was, the receiving
of appeals from the hundreds and decennaries, and the deciding of such
controversies as arose between men of different hundreds. Formerly, the
alderman possessed both the civil and military authority; but Alfred,
sensible that this conjunction of powers rendered the nobility dangerous
and independent, appointed also a sheriff in each county, who enjoyed
a coördinate authority with the former in the judicial function.[*]
His office also impowered him to guard the rights of the crown in the
county, and to levy the fines imposed, which in that age formed no
contemptible part of the public revenue.
[* Ingulph. p. 870.]
There lay an appeal, in default of justice, from all these courts, to
the king himself in council; and as the people, sensible of the equity
and great talents of Alfred, placed their chief confidence in him, he
was soon overwhelmed with appeals from all parts of England. He was
indefatigable in the despatch of these causes;[*] but finding that his
time must be entirely engrossed by this branch of duty, he resolved to
obviate the inconvenience, by correcting the ignorance or corruption of
the inferior magistrates, from which it arose.[**] He took care to have
his nobility instructed in letters and the laws; [***] he chose the
earls and sheriffs from among the men most celebrated for probity and
knowledge; he punished severely all malversation in office;[****] and
he removed all the earls whom he found unequal to the trust;[*****]
allowing only some of the more elderly to serve by a deputy, till their
death should make room for more worthy successors.
[* Asser. p. 20.]
[** Asser. p. 18, 21. Flor. Wigorn. p. 594. Abbas
Rieval. p. 355.]
[*** Flor. Wigorn. p. 594. Brompton, p. 814.]
[**** Le Miroir de Justice, chap. 2.]
[***** Asser, p. 20.]