Page images
PDF
EPUB

ture of the Constitution, we may safely pronounce it to be unfounded. We may discover the error in the same manner that Linnæus detected the ingenuity of his students, who produced to him a shrub composed of different plants so nicely adapted together, that the eye failed to discern the junction of the parts. But the factitious origin of the compound was immediately perceptible to the mind which saw that the functions, united by art, could never have been co-existent in living nature.

The laws were enacted in the Witenagemot. In these assemblies, ecclesiastical affairs were discussed and transacted, sometimes by the clergy alone, sometimes in conjunction with the lay members. No inconsiderable number of the proceedings of these great councils have been preserved in authentic transcripts, and perhaps occasionally in the original declarations or memoranda which were drawn up in the presence of the assembly, and sanctioned by the signatures, that is to say, the crosses of the enacting parties. These relate almost wholly to the affairs of the church, being either public enactments or declarations of ecclesiastical rights, or judicial decisions of cases in which the church was a party, and hence the meetings themselves have been considered rather as ecclesiastical councils than as secular senates. But civil and ecclesiastical affairs were transacted in the same assembly, though few memorials of the former have been preserved. The vigilance of the clergy induced them to record the acts which concerned their order, whilst the laity neglected this precaution, and the history of their transactions has accordingly passed away. Under the head of public instruments we must rank the scanty relics of the international policy of our ancestors. The most curious of these documents is a compact effected between the British and Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of the ancient Domnania,* both of whom appear to have been known by the enchorial designation of Defnsættas, or Devnsættas. The mistake of one single letter, the permutation of the u and the v, has strangely caused this instrument to be considered, in despite of its tenor, as a treaty between the Anglo-Saxons and the inhabitants of the Welsh Mountains. In consequence of this error, the transaction has been referred to a district with which it had no connection, and its real importance in our national history has been entirely overlooked. In the translations given and adopted by Lambard and Wilkins, the following title is prefixed, Senatusconsultum de Monticulis Walliæ;' but if the Saxon original be rightly read, no doubt can be entertained respecting the meaning which is to be assigned to it. Dis is seo geradnysse pe Angelcynnes witan and Weal peode

This territory appears to have been more extensive than the modern Devonshire.

rædboran

rædboran betwox Devnsetan gesættan.*—A river constituted the boundary between the Britous and the English, and the provisions of most importance were those which protected the property of the two nations from mutual depredation. The treaty is framed on principles of the strictest reciprocity, and as it is the only document which illustrates the course by which the British tribes were gradually incorporated with the Anglo-Saxons, it is well worthy of attention. There is no allusion to any British prince in this treaty, nor is there indeed any authentic memorial preserved of any such potentate amongst the western Britons after the seventh century. When the Britons concluded this treaty their situation was nearly equivalent to the state of a Saxon Kingdom, subject to the supreniacy of the Bretwalda. They constituted a tribe retaining many powers of self-government, but subject to the ascendancy of a ruling nation. The river, whose opposite staiths or shores constituted the limits of the two races, can be no other than the Exe, which continued the boundary of the Britons and English until the reign of Edgar. And the concluding stipulation of the treaty, which refers to the tribute payable from the men of Gwent, the modern County of Monmouth, to the king of Wessex, must place its date some time after 828, about which period the Britons submitted to the empire of the victorious Edgar.

The Anglo-Saxon charters may be considered as legislative documents, the sovereign's grants being promulgated in the presence of his Witan, Prelates, Dukes, and Thanes, whose concurrence and assent is expressly testified, and whose names and signs are subscribed. Cases may have occurred in which an AngloSaxon king could make a valid donation without the consent of the Witan: but the extreme paucity of instruments destitute of this sanction, compared with the great number in which the concurrence of the Witan is testified, leaves little doubt respecting the general rule of law. The series of these instruments begins with the charter by which Ethelbert (A. D. 605) founded the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul, afterwards called St. Augustine's Abbey. The land was his demesne. The abuttals are accurately given, and it may be remarked that the street. now called Burgate, named as the southern boundary of the land, retains the same identical name, without any variation, after a lapse of more than twelve hundred years.†

Charters

*The printed text, (Wilkins, 125) reads Deunsættan and afterwards Dunsættan; and Dun signifying a mount in Anglo-Saxon as well as in Gaelic, the mistranslation followed as a matter of course from the erroneous reading.

Ethelbert's Tower has just been laid in ruins by the caprice of an ignorant mechanic; and in consequence of the culpable supineness of the Corporation, the same

fate

Charters require to be examined and investigated with much care. If authentic, they are the best possible guides to history; if spurious, the most mischievous deluders. Worldly interest often tempted the monks to commit forgery, and they did not always resist this temptation so resolutely as might be wished for the honour of the order. Yet in extenuation, if not in apology, it must be remembered that their falsifications were chiefly defensive. Lands which unquestionably belonged to the Church were frequently held merely by prescriptive possession, unaccompanied by deeds and charters. The right was lawful, but there were no means of proving the right. And when the monastery was troubled and impleaded by the Norman Justitiar, or the Soke invaded by the Norman Baron, the Abbot and his brethren would have recourse to the pious fraud of inventing a charter for the purpose of protecting property which, however lawfully acquired and honestly enjoyed, was like to be wrested from them by the captious niceties of the Norman jurisprudence or the greedy tyranny of the Norman sword. These counterfeits are sometimes detected by the pains which were taken to give them currency. It is familiarly known that the Anglo-Saxons confirmed their deeds by subscribing the sign of the cross, and that the charters themselves are fairly but plainly engrossed upon parchment. But instead of imitating these unostentatious instruments, the elaborate forgers often endeavoured to obtain respect for their fabrications by investing them with as much splendour as possible; and those grand crosses of gold, vermilion and azure, which dazzled the eyes and deceived the judgment of the Court when produced before a bench of simple and unsuspecting lawyers, now reveal the secret fraud to the lyux-eyed antiquary. According to Ingulphus these modes of adornment prevailed long before the reign of the Confessor. The foundation charter of Croyland, purporting to have been granted by Ethelbald, is richly adorned, from whence it obtained the name of the Golden Charter,' and the ancient chirographs, gay with paintings and illuminations, and the charters of the Mercian kings covered with embellishments, are enumerated by him amongst the treasures which were consumed when the monastery was destroyed by fire in the year 1091. But we can state, upon the information of the most competent living authority,

fate is preparing for the sumptuous gate-house, almost the only remaining relic of a pile whose history is coeval with the establishment of Christianity in England. The example afforded to the citizens by the Dean and Chapter ought to shame them out of their Vandalism. The restoration of the Cathedral lately effected under the direction of the Dean, without the aid of any professional architect, exhibits an union of archi tectural skill, mechanical contrivance, and correct antiquarian taste which has been seldom equalled and never surpassed.

* Ingulphus, p. 98.

that

that there is no charter of this description which is not manifestly spurious. The 'golden charter' bears the impress of falsity; and unless it be supposed that all the genuine illuminated charters in England perished by sympathy when those at Croyland felt the flame, we must infer that the writer of the history of Ingulphus erred either through ignorance or design.*

Internal evidence is often sufficiently decisive. Terms and phrases borrowed from the Anglo-Norman jurisprudence are introduced, and the institutions and usages belonging to the age of the forgery, transferred to periods when they were entirely unknown. A charter ascribed to Beortulf, king of Mercia, dated at Kingsbury on Saturday in Easter-week, 851, recites that the monks of Croyland having preferred their complaint before the Prelates and Peers of Mercia concerning various trespasses, the King ordered Radbod the Vice dominus of Lincoln to perambulate the demesne of the monks and to return the boundaries before the King and his Council, ubicunque in ultimo Paschæ fuissemus;' which being done, the King, with the consent of his Prelates and Peers, confirms the privileges of the monastery. These proceedings are entirely conformable to the legal usages of the reigns of Edward I. and II.; and unless it be supposed that the proceedings of the High Court of Parliament were inherited from the Witenagemot of Mercia, the whole body of the instrument must be considered as a spurious paraphrase.+ We employ these expressions, because we apprehend that the monks did not entirely trust to their powers of invention, and that, in concerting many of these fabrications, they borrowed the substratum from a genuine instrument, which they expanded and altered in such a manner as to suit the purpose required. At least we cannot otherwise account for the consistency and pertinence of the concluding clauses, appended to many charters of which the contents are entirely supposititious.

The employment of seals amongst the Anglo-Saxons has given rise to much discussion. There can be no doubt but that seals were used for the purpose of impressing the wax which closed the epistles of the Anglo-Saxons. The seal of Ethelwald, bishop of Dunwich (830-70) has lately been discovered,‡ and it will

be

The Croyland charter, in Saxon characters, in the possession of Robert Hunter, Esq. lord of the place, was shown to the Society of Antiquaries, as appears by their minutes, by Mr. Lethellier, in 1734.-(Gough's Croyland, Pref. viii.) In the opinion of Humphry Wanly, it was not much older, if any thing at all, than Henry the Second's time.' The fac-simile given by Hickes (Dissertatio Epistolaris, tab, D). does not leave the slightest doubt of the imposture.

Ingulphus, 12, 13.

This seal was dug up by a labourer in a garden about two hundred yards from the gate of the monastery at Eye, who gave it to the child of a workman employed on a

neighbouring

be readily admitted that the Anglo-Saxons were acquainted with a custom so ancient and so obvious. But this discovery is very far from 'setting at rest the question hitherto in dispute touching the use of seals amongst the Anglo-Saxons.' The question remains just as it was. The point at issue is not whether seals were in use amongst the Anglo-Saxons, but whether the usage of appending a seal to a charter was considered as a legal method of executing the instrument according to the custom of AngloNorman times. In support of the affirmative no other proof can be adduced except a very few charters of Edward the Confessor; but it is the very essence of a legal custom that it should be uniform and constant, and consequently publicly known. It is commonly said that seals were introduced by the Normans:-still they were introduced by slow degrees. William the Conqueror frequently confirmed his charters by his sign or cross alone, and until the reign of Henry II. the privilege of using a seal scarcely extended to any but the greater barons.* Edward the Confessor seems occasionally to have used a seal in imitation of the continental monarchs, but it was superfluous and without legal effect, and the addition of a seal to any document of an earlier period must inevitably cause it to be stigmatized as a monkish forgery.

As the information obtained from charters, when they stand the test of criticism, is of the highest importance, it becomes necessary to use great caution before we admit their validity. At the same time, however, that we subject them to examination, we must take into consideration those circumstances which may give a character of suspicion to documents of real authenticity. There are many documents which appear to be copies of original charters, which were made long after the Conquest for use and perusal, probably to prevent the injury which might result to the ancient land-boc' if touched by rude or careless hands. Occasionally the calligraphist attempted not merely to repeat the words, but to represent the forms of the ancient characters, and as these imitations are easily detected by the skilful neighbouring farm. The child threw it on the fire, from whence its mother rescued it.' It was afterwards purchased by Mr. Hudson Gurney, and presented by him to the British Museum. Archæologia, vol. xx. p. 480. The seal is of a yellow metal, mitre shaped, composed of two rows of arches supported by nine wolves heads, the eyes of which were formed by small garnets. The legend exhibits a mixture of Greek and Latin characters.

SIT EDILVVALDI EP

Gilbert de Baillol, the chief lord of the fee of certain lands contested in the Curia Regis, (temp. Hen. II.) exclaimed, during the discussion of the cause, that many chi-. rographs in the names of his ancestors had been read in his hearing, but that the deeds were not fortified by the testimony of their seals. Richard de Luci, the Justiciar, inquired if he had a seal.-Baillol answered in the affirmative.-The Justiciar replied, with a smile of contempt,-moris non erat antiquitus quemlibet militulum sigillum, habere, quod Regibus et præcipuis tantummodo competit personis.

antiquary,

« PreviousContinue »