When the kingdom was first divided into precincts will be as hard to show as when it began first to be governed. It being impossible that there should be any government without some division. The division that was in use with the Teutons was by counties, and every county had either its ealdorman or high reeve. The title of ealdorman came in time to eorl, or erl, and that of high reeve to high sheriff.
Earl of the shire or county denoted the king's thane, or tenant by grand sergeantry or knight's service, in chief or in capite; his possessions were sometimes the whole territory from whence he had his denomination, that is, the whole county;sometimes more than one county, and sometimes less, the remaining part being in the crown. He had also sometimes a third, or some other customary part of the profits of certain cities, boroughs, or other places within his earldom. For an example of the possessions of earls in ancient times, Ethelred had to him and his heirs the whole Kingdom of Mercia, containing three or four counties; and there were others that had little less.
King's thane was also an honorary title, to which he was qualified that had five hides of land held immediately of the King by service of personal attendance; insomuch that if a churl or countryman had thriven to this proportion, having a church, a kitchen, a bell-house (that is, a hall with a bell in it to call his family to dinner), a borough-gate with a seat (that is, a porch) of his own, and any distinct office in the King's court, then was he the King's thane. But the proportion of a hide-land, otherwise called caruca, or a plough-land, is difficult to be understood, because it was not certain; nevertheless it is generally conceived to be so much as may be managed with one plough, and would yield the maintenance of the same, with the appurtenances in all kinds.
The middle thane was feudal, but not honorary; he was also called a vavasor, and his lands a vavasory, which held of some mesne lord, and not immediately of the King.
Possessions and their tenures, being of this nature, show the balance of the Teuton monarchy, wherein the riches of earls were so vast that to arise from the balance of their dominion to their power, they were not only called reguli, or little kings, but were such indeed; their jurisdiction being of two sorts, either that which was exercised by them in the court of their countries, or in the high court of the kingdom.
In the territory denominating an earl, if it were all his own, the courts held, and the profits of that jurisdiction were to his own use and benefit. But if he had but some part of his county, then his jurisdiction and courts, saving perhaps in those possessions that were his own, were held by him to the King's use and benefit; that is, he commonly supplied the office which the sheriffs regularly executed in counties that had no earls, and whence they came to be called viscounts. The court of the county that had an earl was held by the earl and the bishop of the diocese, after the manner of the sheriffs' turns to this day; by which means both the ecclesiastical and temporal laws were given in charge together to the country. The causes of vavasors or vavasories appertained to the cognizance of this court, where wills were proved, judgment and execution given, cases criminal and civil determined.
The King's thanes had the like jurisdiction in their thane lands as lords in their manors, where they also kept courts.
Besides these in particular, both the earls and King's thanes, together with the bishops, abbots, and vavasors, or middle thanes, had in the high court or parliament in the kingdom a more public jurisdiction, consisting first of deliberative power for advising upon and assenting to new laws; secondly, giving counsel in matters of state and thirdly, of judicature upon suits and complaints. I shall not omit to enlighten the obscurity of these times, in which there is little to be found of a methodical constitution of this high court, by the addition of an argument, which I conceive to bear a strong testimony to itself, though taken out of a late writing that conceals the author. "It is well known," says he, "that in every quarter of the realm a great many boroughs do yet send burgesses to the parliament which nevertheless be so anciently and so long since decayed and gone to naught, that they cannot be showed to have been of any reputation since the Conquest, much less to have obtained any such privilege by the grant of any succeeding king:
wherefore these must have had this right by more ancient usage, and before the Conquest, they being unable now to show whence they derived it."This argument, though there be more, I shall pitch upon as sufficient to prove: First, that the lower sort of the people had right to session in Parliament during the time of the Teutons.
Secondly, that they were qualified to the same by election in their boroughs, and if knights of the shire, as no doubt they are, be as ancient in the counties. Thirdly if it be a good argument to say that the commons during the reign of the Teutons were elected into Parliament because they are so now, and no man can show when this custom began, I see not which way it should be an ill one to say that the commons during the reign of the Teutons constituted also a distinct house because they do so now, unless any man can show that they did ever sit in the same house with the lords. Wherefore to conclude this part, I conceive for these, and other reasons to be mentioned hereafter, that the Parliament of the Teutons consisted of the King, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the commons of the nation, notwithstanding the style of divers acts of Parliament, which runs, as that of Magna Charta, in the King's name only, seeing the same was nevertheless enacted by the King, peers, and commons of the land, as is testified in those words by a subsequent act.
