FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[942]The Story of Portugal, by Mr. H. Morse Stephens, 1891, is the most trustworthy history of Portugal in English, giving as it does the main results of the work of the modern scientific school of Portuguese historians.[943]Schanz,Englische Handelspolitik, 1881, p. 283.[944]H. Morse Stephens,Portugal, 1891, pp. 53, 87, 102, 236.[945]Stephens,Portugal, pp. 148, 149, 182.[946]Many of the dates are to some extent in dispute. Cp. Stephens,Portugal, pp. 144-56; and Mr. Major's Life ofPrince Henry of Portugal, 1868,passim.[947]There is a dubious-looking record that at this time a systematic attempt was made to Christianise the natives instead of enslaving them. See it in Dunham,History of Spain and Portugal, iii, 288-91.[948]Thus the second great expansion of geographical knowledge, like the first, went to the credit of Spain through Portuguese mismanagement, Magellan being alienated by King Miguel's impolicy.[949]I follow the dates fixed by Mr. Stephens, p. 175.[950]See Dunham, iii, 286, as to the anger of John II at a pilot's remark that the voyage to Guinea was easily made. An attempted disclosure of the fact to Spain was ferociously punished.[951]Cp. Stephens, pp. 181, 218.[952]Id.p. 228.[953]Stephens, pp. 177, 181, 192.[954]Id.pp. 171-73.[955]Conde da Carnota,The Marquis of Pombal, 2nd. ed. 1871, pp. 72-77.[956]Stephens, p. 182.[957]Stephens, pp. 227, 228.[958]Introduction, 3-vol. ed. i, 103-108; 1-vol. ed. pp. 60-61. The formula of heat and moisture, however, applies only generally. One of the climatic troubles of the great province of Céará in particular is that at times there is no wet season, and now and then even a drought of whole years. See ch. iii,Climatologie, by Henri Morize, in the compilationBrésil en 1889, pp. 41, 42.[959]Cp. the extremely interesting treatises of Mr. Lucien Carr,The Mounds of the Mississippi Valley(Washington, 1893),The Position of Women among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes(Salem, 1884), and on theFood and Ornaments of Certain American Indians(Worcester, Mass., 1895-97).[960]Increase of eight millions since 1890.[961]Stephens, p. 225.[962]Mr. Stephens (p. 226) states that there were created three vast "chief captaincies." Baron de Rio-Branco, in hisEsquisse de l'histoire du Brésil, in the compilationBrésil en 1889, specifies a division by the king (1532-35) into twelve hereditary captaincies. Both statements seem true. The policy of non-interference was wisely adhered to by later governors, though Thomas de Sousa (circa1550) introduced a necessary measure of centralisation.[963]Stephens, pp. 231, 232.[964]Baron de Rio-Branco,Esquisse, as cited, pp. 127-32.[965]Id.p. 149; Stephens, p. 231.[966]Stephens, p. 359.[967]By decree of June, 1755. Conde da Carnota,The Marquis of Pombal, as cited, p. 40.[968]Rio-Branco, p. 132.[969]As to which see Rio-Branco, p. 149.[970]Id.p. 148.[971]As to this see the author'sDynamics of Religion, pp. 24-27; andShort History of Freethought, 2nd ed. i, 375sq.[972]Stephens, pp. 348, 376.[973]This is very trenchantly set forth in one of the writings of the Marquis of Pombal, given by Carnota in his memoir, pp. 75-77. Pombal was on this head evidently a disciple of the French physiocrats, or of Montesquieu, who lucidly embodies their doctrines on money (Esprit des Lois, 1748, xxi, 22; xxii, 1sq.). On the general question of the impoverishment of Portugal by her American gold and silver mines, cp. Carnota pp. 4, 72-73, 207.[974]This has been repeatedly suggested. See the pamphlet of Guilherme J.C. Henriquez (W.J. C. Henry) onPortugal, 1880.[975]This had been several times proposed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Rio-Branco, p. 154).[976]Rio-Branco, p. 163.[977]Cp. Rio-Branco,Esquisse, as cited, p. 151.[978]F.J. de Santa-Anna Nery, "Travail servile et travail libre," in vol.Brésil en 1889, pp. 205, 206; E. da Silva-Prado, "Immigration," ch. xvi of same compilation, pp. 489, 490.[979]Rio-Branco, p. 186,note.[980]From 1857 to 1871, the fifteen years preceding the process of emancipation, the total immigration was only 170,000. From 1873 to 1887 it amounted to 400,000, and it has since much increased. Cp. Santa-Anna Nery, as cited, p. 212; and E. da Silva-Prado, "Immigration" as cited, pp. 489-91.[981]It is interesting to note that whereas he was, for a king, an accomplished and enlightened philosopher, of the theistic school of Coleridge, the revolutionist movement was made by the Brazilian school of Positivists. It would be hard to find a revolution in which both sides stood at so high an intellectual level.[982]See, inBrésil en 1889, the remarks of M. da Silva-Prado, p. 559.[983]See the section (ch. iii) on "Climatologie," by Henri Morize, inBrésil en 1889; in particular the section on "Immigration" (ch. xvi) by E. da Silva-Prado, pp. 503-505.[984]See, in the same volume, the section (ch. xviii) on "L'Art," by da Silva-Prado. He shows that "Le Brésilien a la préoccupation de la beauté" (p. 556).[985]The probabilities appear to be specially in favour of music, to which the native races and the negroes alike show a great predilection (id.pp. 545, 546). As M. da Silva-Prado urges, what is needed is a systematic home-instruction, as liberally carried out as was Pedro's policy of sending promising students of the arts to Europe. Thus far, though education is good, books have been relatively scarce because of their dearness. Here again the United States had an immense preliminary advantage in their ability to reproduce at low prices the works of English authors, paying nothing to the writers; a state of things which subsisted long after the States had produced great writers of their own.[986]In Portugal, "by a law enacted in 1844, primary education is compulsory; but only a small fraction of the children of the lower classes really attend school" (Statesman's Year-Book). In Brazil there has been great educational progress in recent years; and in 1911 a decree was issued for the reform of the school system, a Board of Education being established with control over all the schools. Education is still non-compulsory.

[942]The Story of Portugal, by Mr. H. Morse Stephens, 1891, is the most trustworthy history of Portugal in English, giving as it does the main results of the work of the modern scientific school of Portuguese historians.

[943]Schanz,Englische Handelspolitik, 1881, p. 283.

[944]H. Morse Stephens,Portugal, 1891, pp. 53, 87, 102, 236.

[945]Stephens,Portugal, pp. 148, 149, 182.

[946]Many of the dates are to some extent in dispute. Cp. Stephens,Portugal, pp. 144-56; and Mr. Major's Life ofPrince Henry of Portugal, 1868,passim.

[947]There is a dubious-looking record that at this time a systematic attempt was made to Christianise the natives instead of enslaving them. See it in Dunham,History of Spain and Portugal, iii, 288-91.

[948]Thus the second great expansion of geographical knowledge, like the first, went to the credit of Spain through Portuguese mismanagement, Magellan being alienated by King Miguel's impolicy.

[949]I follow the dates fixed by Mr. Stephens, p. 175.

[950]See Dunham, iii, 286, as to the anger of John II at a pilot's remark that the voyage to Guinea was easily made. An attempted disclosure of the fact to Spain was ferociously punished.

[951]Cp. Stephens, pp. 181, 218.

[952]Id.p. 228.

[953]Stephens, pp. 177, 181, 192.

[954]Id.pp. 171-73.

[955]Conde da Carnota,The Marquis of Pombal, 2nd. ed. 1871, pp. 72-77.

[956]Stephens, p. 182.

[957]Stephens, pp. 227, 228.

[958]Introduction, 3-vol. ed. i, 103-108; 1-vol. ed. pp. 60-61. The formula of heat and moisture, however, applies only generally. One of the climatic troubles of the great province of Céará in particular is that at times there is no wet season, and now and then even a drought of whole years. See ch. iii,Climatologie, by Henri Morize, in the compilationBrésil en 1889, pp. 41, 42.

[959]Cp. the extremely interesting treatises of Mr. Lucien Carr,The Mounds of the Mississippi Valley(Washington, 1893),The Position of Women among the Huron-Iroquois Tribes(Salem, 1884), and on theFood and Ornaments of Certain American Indians(Worcester, Mass., 1895-97).

[960]Increase of eight millions since 1890.

[961]Stephens, p. 225.

[962]Mr. Stephens (p. 226) states that there were created three vast "chief captaincies." Baron de Rio-Branco, in hisEsquisse de l'histoire du Brésil, in the compilationBrésil en 1889, specifies a division by the king (1532-35) into twelve hereditary captaincies. Both statements seem true. The policy of non-interference was wisely adhered to by later governors, though Thomas de Sousa (circa1550) introduced a necessary measure of centralisation.

[963]Stephens, pp. 231, 232.

[964]Baron de Rio-Branco,Esquisse, as cited, pp. 127-32.

[965]Id.p. 149; Stephens, p. 231.

[966]Stephens, p. 359.

[967]By decree of June, 1755. Conde da Carnota,The Marquis of Pombal, as cited, p. 40.

[968]Rio-Branco, p. 132.

[969]As to which see Rio-Branco, p. 149.

[970]Id.p. 148.

[971]As to this see the author'sDynamics of Religion, pp. 24-27; andShort History of Freethought, 2nd ed. i, 375sq.

[972]Stephens, pp. 348, 376.

[973]This is very trenchantly set forth in one of the writings of the Marquis of Pombal, given by Carnota in his memoir, pp. 75-77. Pombal was on this head evidently a disciple of the French physiocrats, or of Montesquieu, who lucidly embodies their doctrines on money (Esprit des Lois, 1748, xxi, 22; xxii, 1sq.). On the general question of the impoverishment of Portugal by her American gold and silver mines, cp. Carnota pp. 4, 72-73, 207.

[974]This has been repeatedly suggested. See the pamphlet of Guilherme J.C. Henriquez (W.J. C. Henry) onPortugal, 1880.

[975]This had been several times proposed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Rio-Branco, p. 154).

[976]Rio-Branco, p. 163.

[977]Cp. Rio-Branco,Esquisse, as cited, p. 151.

[978]F.J. de Santa-Anna Nery, "Travail servile et travail libre," in vol.Brésil en 1889, pp. 205, 206; E. da Silva-Prado, "Immigration," ch. xvi of same compilation, pp. 489, 490.

[979]Rio-Branco, p. 186,note.

[980]From 1857 to 1871, the fifteen years preceding the process of emancipation, the total immigration was only 170,000. From 1873 to 1887 it amounted to 400,000, and it has since much increased. Cp. Santa-Anna Nery, as cited, p. 212; and E. da Silva-Prado, "Immigration" as cited, pp. 489-91.

[981]It is interesting to note that whereas he was, for a king, an accomplished and enlightened philosopher, of the theistic school of Coleridge, the revolutionist movement was made by the Brazilian school of Positivists. It would be hard to find a revolution in which both sides stood at so high an intellectual level.

[982]See, inBrésil en 1889, the remarks of M. da Silva-Prado, p. 559.

[983]See the section (ch. iii) on "Climatologie," by Henri Morize, inBrésil en 1889; in particular the section on "Immigration" (ch. xvi) by E. da Silva-Prado, pp. 503-505.

[984]See, in the same volume, the section (ch. xviii) on "L'Art," by da Silva-Prado. He shows that "Le Brésilien a la préoccupation de la beauté" (p. 556).

[985]The probabilities appear to be specially in favour of music, to which the native races and the negroes alike show a great predilection (id.pp. 545, 546). As M. da Silva-Prado urges, what is needed is a systematic home-instruction, as liberally carried out as was Pedro's policy of sending promising students of the arts to Europe. Thus far, though education is good, books have been relatively scarce because of their dearness. Here again the United States had an immense preliminary advantage in their ability to reproduce at low prices the works of English authors, paying nothing to the writers; a state of things which subsisted long after the States had produced great writers of their own.

[986]In Portugal, "by a law enacted in 1844, primary education is compulsory; but only a small fraction of the children of the lower classes really attend school" (Statesman's Year-Book). In Brazil there has been great educational progress in recent years; and in 1911 a decree was issued for the reform of the school system, a Board of Education being established with control over all the schools. Education is still non-compulsory.

ENGLISH HISTORY DOWN TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL PERIOD

BEFORE THE GREAT REBELLION

It is after the great Civil War that English political development becomes most directly instructive, because it is thenceforward that the modern political conditions begin to be directly traceable. Constitutional or parliamentary monarchy takes at that point a virtually new departure. But we shall be better prepared to follow the play of the forces of attraction and repulsion, union and strife, in the modern period, if we first realise how in the ages of feudal monarchy and personal monarchy, as the previous periods have been conveniently named, the same fundamental forces were at work in different channels. The further we follow these forces back the better we are prepared to conceive political movement in terms of naturalist as opposed to verbalist formulas. Above all things, we must get rid of the habit of explaining each phenomenon in terms of the abstraction of itself—as Puritanism by "the Puritan spirit," Christian civilisation by "Christianity," and English history by "the English character." We are to look for the causation of the Puritan spirit and English conduct and the religion of the hour in the interplay of general instincts and particular circumstances.

§ 1

At the very outset, the conventional views as to the bias of the "Anglo-Saxon race"[987]are seen on the least scrutiny to be excluded by the facts. Credited with an innate bent to seafaring, the earlyEnglish are found to have virtually abandoned the sea after settling in England;[988]the new conditions altering the sea-going bent just as the older had made it, and continued to do in the case of the Scandinavians. Credited in the same fashion with a racial bias to commerce, they are found to have been uncommercial, unadventurous, home-staying; and it took centuries of continental influences to make them otherwise. Up to the fourteenth century "almost the whole of English trade was in the hands of aliens."[989]And of what trade the "free" Anglo-Saxons did conduct, the most important branch seems to have been the slave trade.[990]As to the mass of the population, whatever were their actual life-conditions—and as to this we have very little knowledge—they were certainly not the "free barbarians" of the old Teutonic legend. Unfree in some sense they mostly were; and all that we have seen of the early evolution of Greece and Rome goes to suggest that their status was essentially depressed. In the words of a close student, English economic history "begins with the serfdom of the masses of the rural population under Saxon rule—a serfdom from which it has taken a thousand years of English economic evolution to set them free."[991]This is perhaps an over-statement: serfdom suggests general predial slavery; and this cannot be shown to have existed. But those who repel the proposition seem to take no account of thetendencytowards popular depression in early settled communities.[992]If we stand by the terminology of Domesday Book, we are far indeed from the conception of a population of freemen.

That the mass of the "Saxon" English (who included many of non-Saxon descent) were more or less "unfree" is a conclusion repeatedly reached on different lines of research. Long ago, the popular historian Sharon Turner wrote that "There can be no doubt that nearly three-fourths of the Anglo-Saxon population were in a state of slavery" (History of the Anglo-Saxons, 4th ed. 1823, iii, 255); and he is here supported by his adversary Dunham (Europe during the Middle Ages, Cab. Cyc.1834, iii, 49-52). J.M. Kemble later admitted that the "whole population in some districts were unfree" (The Saxons in England, reprint, 1876, i, 189). Yet another careful student sums up that "at the time of the Conquest we find the larger portion of the inhabitants of England in a state of villenage" (J.F. Morgan,England under the Normans, 1858, p. 61). (The interesting question of the racial elements of the population at and after the Conquest is fully discussed by the Rev. Geoffrey Hill,Some Consequences of the Norman Conquest, 1904, ch. i.)Later and closer research does but indicate gradations in the status of the unfree—gradations which seem to have varied arbitrarily in terms of local law. (On this, however, see Morgan, p. 62.) The Domesday Book specifies multitudes ofvillani,servi,bordarii(orcotarii), as well as (occasionally) large numbers ofsochmanni, andliberi homines. In Cornwall there were only six chief proprietors, with 1,738villani, 2,441bordarii, and 1,148servi; in Devonshire, 8,246villani, 4,814bordarii, and 3,210servi; in Gloucestershire, 3,071villani, 1,701bordarii, and 2,423servi; while in Lincolnshire there were 11,322sochmanni, 7,168villani, 3,737bordarii; and in Norfolk 4,528villani, 8,679bordarii, 1,066servi, 5,521sochmanni, and 4,981liberi homines. (Cp. Sharon Turner, as cited, vol. iii, bk. viii, ch. 9.) Thus the largest numbers of ostensible freemen are found in the lately settled Danish districts, and the largest number of slaves where most of the old British population survived (Ashley,Economic History, 1888, i, 17, 18; Cunningham,Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 1891, i, 88). "The eastern counties are the home of liberty" (Maitland,Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 23). The main totals are:bordarii, 82,119;villani, 108,407;servi, 25,156; that is, 215,000 heads of families, roughly speaking, all of whom were more or less "unfree," out of an entire enumerated male population of 300,000.The constant tendency was to reduce all shades to one ofnativior born villeins (Stubbs,Constitutional History, 4th ed. i, 465); that is to say, the number of absolute serfs tends to lessen, their status being gradually improved, while higher grades tend to be somewhat lowered. Prof. Vinogradoff's research, which aims at correcting Mr. Seebohm's, does but disclose that villenage in general had three aspects:—"Legal theory and political disabilities would fain make it all but slavery; the manorial system ensures it something of the character of the Romancolonatus; there is a stock of freedom in it which speaks of Saxon tradition" (Villainage in England, 1892, p. 137; cp. Seebohm, as cited, p. 409; and Stubbs, § 132, i, 462-65). Even the comparatively "free" socmen were tied to the land and were not independent yeomen (Ashley, i, 19); and even "freedmen" were often tied to aspecified service by the act of manumission (Dunham, as cited, iii, 51). As to Teutonic slavery in general, cp. C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, French tr. 1878, i, 41-44, and U.R. Burke,History of Spain, Hume's ed. 1900, i, 116; as to France, cp. Guizot,Essais sur l'Histoire de France, édit. 1847, pp. 162-72;Histoire de la civilisation en France, 13e édit. iii, 172, 190-203; and as to the Netherlands, see above, pp. 295-96.

Later and closer research does but indicate gradations in the status of the unfree—gradations which seem to have varied arbitrarily in terms of local law. (On this, however, see Morgan, p. 62.) The Domesday Book specifies multitudes ofvillani,servi,bordarii(orcotarii), as well as (occasionally) large numbers ofsochmanni, andliberi homines. In Cornwall there were only six chief proprietors, with 1,738villani, 2,441bordarii, and 1,148servi; in Devonshire, 8,246villani, 4,814bordarii, and 3,210servi; in Gloucestershire, 3,071villani, 1,701bordarii, and 2,423servi; while in Lincolnshire there were 11,322sochmanni, 7,168villani, 3,737bordarii; and in Norfolk 4,528villani, 8,679bordarii, 1,066servi, 5,521sochmanni, and 4,981liberi homines. (Cp. Sharon Turner, as cited, vol. iii, bk. viii, ch. 9.) Thus the largest numbers of ostensible freemen are found in the lately settled Danish districts, and the largest number of slaves where most of the old British population survived (Ashley,Economic History, 1888, i, 17, 18; Cunningham,Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 1891, i, 88). "The eastern counties are the home of liberty" (Maitland,Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 23). The main totals are:bordarii, 82,119;villani, 108,407;servi, 25,156; that is, 215,000 heads of families, roughly speaking, all of whom were more or less "unfree," out of an entire enumerated male population of 300,000.

The constant tendency was to reduce all shades to one ofnativior born villeins (Stubbs,Constitutional History, 4th ed. i, 465); that is to say, the number of absolute serfs tends to lessen, their status being gradually improved, while higher grades tend to be somewhat lowered. Prof. Vinogradoff's research, which aims at correcting Mr. Seebohm's, does but disclose that villenage in general had three aspects:—"Legal theory and political disabilities would fain make it all but slavery; the manorial system ensures it something of the character of the Romancolonatus; there is a stock of freedom in it which speaks of Saxon tradition" (Villainage in England, 1892, p. 137; cp. Seebohm, as cited, p. 409; and Stubbs, § 132, i, 462-65). Even the comparatively "free" socmen were tied to the land and were not independent yeomen (Ashley, i, 19); and even "freedmen" were often tied to aspecified service by the act of manumission (Dunham, as cited, iii, 51). As to Teutonic slavery in general, cp. C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, French tr. 1878, i, 41-44, and U.R. Burke,History of Spain, Hume's ed. 1900, i, 116; as to France, cp. Guizot,Essais sur l'Histoire de France, édit. 1847, pp. 162-72;Histoire de la civilisation en France, 13e édit. iii, 172, 190-203; and as to the Netherlands, see above, pp. 295-96.

There is a tendency on the one hand to exaggerate the significance of the data, as when we identify the lot of an ancient serf or villein with that of a negro in the United States of sixty years ago;[993]and on the other hand to forget, in familiarity with scholarly research, the inevitable moral bearing of all degrees of bondage. Thevillanus"both is and is not a free man"; but the "not" is none the less morally significant: "though he may beliber homo, he is notfrancus";[994]and his name carries a slur. An immeasurable amount of moral history is conveyed in the simple fact that "slave" was always a term of abuse; that "villain" is just "villein"; that "caitiff" is just "captive"; and that "churl" is just "ceorl." So the "neif" (=naïf= native) becomes the "knave";[995]the "scullion" the "blackguard"; and the homeless wanderer the "vagabond"; even as for the Roman "the guest,"hostis, was "the enemy." The "rogue" has doubtless a similar descent, and "rogue and peasant-slave" in Tudor times, when slavery had ceased, stood for all things contemptible. Men degrade and impoverish their fellows, and out of the created fact of deprivation make their worst aspersions; never asking who or what it is that thus turns human beings into scullions, churls, blackguards, knaves, caitiffs, rogues, and villains. The Greeks knew that a man enslaved was a man demoralised; but saw in the knowledge no motive for change of social tactics. Still less did the Saxons; for their manumissions at the bidding of the priest were but penitential acts, in no way altering the general drift of things.

Green (Short History, ch. i, § 6, ed. 1881, pp. 54, 55), laying stress on the manumissions, asserts that under Edgar "slavery was gradually disappearing before the efforts of the Church." But this is going far beyond the evidence. Green seems to have assumed that the laws framed by Dunstan were efficacious; but they clearly were not. (Cp. C. Edmond Maurice,Tyler, Bale, and Oldcastle, 1875, pp. 14-18.) Kemble rightly notes—here going deeper than Prof. Vinogradoff—that there was a constant process of new slave-making (Saxons, i, 183-84; cp.Maitland, p. 31); and in particular notes how "the honours and security of service became more anxiously desired than a needy and unsafe freedom" (p. 184). There is in short a law of worsenment in a crude polity as in an advanced one. Green himself says of the slave class that it "sprang mainly from debt or crime" (The Making of England, 1885, p. 192; cp.Short History, p. 13). But debt and "crime" were always arising. Compare his admissions inThe Conquest of England, 2nd ed. pp. 444, 445. Elsewhere he admits that slaves were multiplied by the mutual wars of the Saxons (p. 13); and Kemble, recognising "crime" as an important factor, agrees (i, 186) with Eichhorn and Grimm in seeing in war and conquest the "principal and original cause of slavery in all its branches." A battle would make more slaves in a day than were manumitted in a year. Some slaves indeed, as in the Roman Empire, were able to buy their freedom (Maurice, as cited, p. 20, and refs.; Dunham, as cited, iii, 51); but there can have been few such cases. (Cp. C.-F. Allen,Histoire de Danemark, French tr. i, 41-44, as to the general tendencies of Teutonic slavery.) The clergy for a time promoted enfranchisement, and even set an example in order to widen their own basis of power; but as Green later notes (ch. v, § 4, p. 239) the Church in the end promoted "emancipation, as a work of piety, on all estates but its own." Green further makes the vital admission that "the decrease of slavery was more than compensated by the increasing degradation of the bulk of the people.... Religion had told against political independence"—for the Church played into the hands of the king.During the Danish invasions, which involved heavy taxation (Danegeld) to buy off the invaders, slavery increased and worsened; and Cnut's repetition of the old laws against the foreign slave trade can have availed little (Maurice, as cited, pp. 23-24). Prof. Abdy, after recognising that before the Conquest English liberties were disappearing like those of France (Lectures on Feudalism, 1890, pp. 322, 326-27, 331), argues that, though the tenure of the villein was servile, he in person was not bond (App. p. 428). "Bond" is, of course, a term of degree, like others; but if "not bond" means "freeman," the case will not stand. The sole argument is that "had he been so [bond], it is difficult to understand his admission into the conference [in the procedure of the Domesday Survey] apparently on an equality with the other members of the inquest." Now he was plainly not on an equality. The inquest was to be made through the sheriff, the lord of the manor, the parish priest, the reeve, the bailiff, andsixvilleins out of each hamlet (Id.p. 360). It is pretty clear that the villeins were simply witnesses to check, if need were, the statements of their superiors.The weightiest argument against the darker view of Saxon serfdom is the suggestion of the late Prof. Maitland (Domesday Book, p. 223) that the process of technical subordination, broadly called feudalism, was really a process of infusion of law and order. But he confessedly made out no clear case, and historical analogy is against him.Finally, though under the Normans the Saxon slaves appear to have gained as beside the middle grades of peasants (Morgan,England under the Normans, p. 225; Ashley, i, 18), it is a plain error to state that the Bristol slave-trade was suppressed under William by "the preaching of Wulfstan, and the influence of Lanfranc" (Green,Short History, p. 55; also in longerHistory, i, 127; so also Bishop Stubbs, i, 463,note. The true view is put by Maurice, as cited, p. 30). The historian incidentally reveals later (Short History, ch. vii, § 8, p. 432, proceeding on Giraldus Cambrensis,Expugnatio Hiberniæ, lib. i, c. 18) that "at the time of Henry II's accession Ireland was full of Englishmen who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery, in spite of Royal prohibitions and the spiritual menaces of the English Church." (Cp. Hallam,Middle Ages, iii, 316,note.) He admits, too (p. 55), that "a hundred years later than Dunstan the wealth of English nobles was sometimes said to spring from breeding slaves for the market." The "market" was for concubines and prostitutes, as well as for labourers. (Cp. Southey,Book of the Church, ed. 1824, i, 115, following William of Malmesbury; and Hallam, as last cited.) Gibbon justifiably infers (ch. 38, Bohn ed. iv, 227) that the children of the Roman slave market of the days of Gregory the Great,non Angli sed angeli, were sold into slavery by their parents. "From the first to the last age," he holds, the Anglo-Saxons "persisted in this unnatural practice." Cp. Maurice, as cited, pp. 4-5. Gregory actually encouraged the traffic in English slaves after he became Pope. (Ep. to Candidus, cited in pref. to Mrs. Elstoh's trans. of the Anglo-Saxon Homily, p. xi.)Thus, under Saxon, Danish, and Norman law alike, a slave trade persisted for centuries. As regards the conditions of domestic slavery, it seems clear that the Conquest lowered the status of the half-free; but on the other hand "there was a great decrease in the number of slaves in Essex between the years 1065 and 1085" (Morgan, as cited, p. 225; cp. Maitland, p. 35).

During the Danish invasions, which involved heavy taxation (Danegeld) to buy off the invaders, slavery increased and worsened; and Cnut's repetition of the old laws against the foreign slave trade can have availed little (Maurice, as cited, pp. 23-24). Prof. Abdy, after recognising that before the Conquest English liberties were disappearing like those of France (Lectures on Feudalism, 1890, pp. 322, 326-27, 331), argues that, though the tenure of the villein was servile, he in person was not bond (App. p. 428). "Bond" is, of course, a term of degree, like others; but if "not bond" means "freeman," the case will not stand. The sole argument is that "had he been so [bond], it is difficult to understand his admission into the conference [in the procedure of the Domesday Survey] apparently on an equality with the other members of the inquest." Now he was plainly not on an equality. The inquest was to be made through the sheriff, the lord of the manor, the parish priest, the reeve, the bailiff, andsixvilleins out of each hamlet (Id.p. 360). It is pretty clear that the villeins were simply witnesses to check, if need were, the statements of their superiors.

The weightiest argument against the darker view of Saxon serfdom is the suggestion of the late Prof. Maitland (Domesday Book, p. 223) that the process of technical subordination, broadly called feudalism, was really a process of infusion of law and order. But he confessedly made out no clear case, and historical analogy is against him.

Finally, though under the Normans the Saxon slaves appear to have gained as beside the middle grades of peasants (Morgan,England under the Normans, p. 225; Ashley, i, 18), it is a plain error to state that the Bristol slave-trade was suppressed under William by "the preaching of Wulfstan, and the influence of Lanfranc" (Green,Short History, p. 55; also in longerHistory, i, 127; so also Bishop Stubbs, i, 463,note. The true view is put by Maurice, as cited, p. 30). The historian incidentally reveals later (Short History, ch. vii, § 8, p. 432, proceeding on Giraldus Cambrensis,Expugnatio Hiberniæ, lib. i, c. 18) that "at the time of Henry II's accession Ireland was full of Englishmen who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery, in spite of Royal prohibitions and the spiritual menaces of the English Church." (Cp. Hallam,Middle Ages, iii, 316,note.) He admits, too (p. 55), that "a hundred years later than Dunstan the wealth of English nobles was sometimes said to spring from breeding slaves for the market." The "market" was for concubines and prostitutes, as well as for labourers. (Cp. Southey,Book of the Church, ed. 1824, i, 115, following William of Malmesbury; and Hallam, as last cited.) Gibbon justifiably infers (ch. 38, Bohn ed. iv, 227) that the children of the Roman slave market of the days of Gregory the Great,non Angli sed angeli, were sold into slavery by their parents. "From the first to the last age," he holds, the Anglo-Saxons "persisted in this unnatural practice." Cp. Maurice, as cited, pp. 4-5. Gregory actually encouraged the traffic in English slaves after he became Pope. (Ep. to Candidus, cited in pref. to Mrs. Elstoh's trans. of the Anglo-Saxon Homily, p. xi.)

Thus, under Saxon, Danish, and Norman law alike, a slave trade persisted for centuries. As regards the conditions of domestic slavery, it seems clear that the Conquest lowered the status of the half-free; but on the other hand "there was a great decrease in the number of slaves in Essex between the years 1065 and 1085" (Morgan, as cited, p. 225; cp. Maitland, p. 35).

In Saxondom, for centuries before the Conquest, "history" is made chiefly by the primitive forces of tribal and local animosity, the Northmen coming in to complicate the insoluble strifes of the earlier English, partly uniting these against them, dominating some, and getting ultimately absorbed in the population, but probably constituting for long an extra source of conflict in domestic politics.A broad difference of accent, as in the Scandinavian States down to our own day, is often a strain on fellowship. In any case, the Anglo-Saxons at the time of the Conquest, as always from the time of their own entry, showed themselves utterly devoid of the "gift of union" which has been ascribed to their "race," as to the Roman. No "Celts" were ever more hopelessly divided: the Battle of Hastings is the crowning proof.[996]And in the absence of leading and stimulus from a higher culture, so little progressive force is there in a group of struggling barbaric communities that there was only the scantiest political and other improvement in Saxon England during hundreds of years. When Alfred strove to build up a civilisation, he turned as a matter of course to the Franks.[997]The one civilising force was that of the slight contacts kept up with the Continent, perhaps the most important being the organisation of the Church. It was the Norman Conquest, bringing with it a multitude of new contacts, and an entrance of swarms of French and Flemish artificers and clerics, that decisively began the civilisation of England. The Teutonic basis, barbarous as it was, showed symptoms of degeneration rather than of development. In brief, France was mainly civilised through Italy; England was mainly civilised through France.

Bishop Stubbs, after admitting as much (§ 91, i, 269, 270) and noting the Norman "genius for every branch of organisation," proceeds to say "that the Norman polity had very little substantial organisation of its own, and that it was native energy that wrought the subsequent transformation." His own pages supply the disproof. See in particular as to the legislative and administrative activity of Henry II, § 147, i, 530-33. As to the arrest or degeneration of the Saxon civilisation, cp. § 79, i, 227, 228; Sharon Turner,History of England during the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. i, 1, 73; H.W. C. Davis,England under the Normans and the Angevins, 1905, p. 1; Pearson,History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, 1867, i, 288, 308-12, 321, 343, 346, 347; Abdy, as cited above. Mr. Pearson's testimony, it should be noted, is that of a partisan and eulogist of the "race."Gneist, after deciding that the number of the unfree population "erscheint nicht übergross," admits that the dependent stratum of the population must needs always increase, "as a result of the land system. In time of war the class increased through the ruin of the small holdings; in time of peace through the increase of the landless members of families. The favourableeffects of a new acquisition through conquest and booty were a gain only to the possessing class" (Geschichte des englischen Self-Government, 1863, p. 7). He concludes that "the social structure of the Anglo-Saxons appears to be on the whole unchanging, advancing only in the multiplication of the dependent classes." Among the symptoms of degeneration may be noted the retirement of nearly thirty kings and queens into convents or reclusion during the seventh and eighth centuries. This was presumably a result of clerical management.

Gneist, after deciding that the number of the unfree population "erscheint nicht übergross," admits that the dependent stratum of the population must needs always increase, "as a result of the land system. In time of war the class increased through the ruin of the small holdings; in time of peace through the increase of the landless members of families. The favourableeffects of a new acquisition through conquest and booty were a gain only to the possessing class" (Geschichte des englischen Self-Government, 1863, p. 7). He concludes that "the social structure of the Anglo-Saxons appears to be on the whole unchanging, advancing only in the multiplication of the dependent classes." Among the symptoms of degeneration may be noted the retirement of nearly thirty kings and queens into convents or reclusion during the seventh and eighth centuries. This was presumably a result of clerical management.

In Normandy itself, however, half a century before the Conquest, there had arisen a state of extreme tension between the peasantry and their lords; and a projected rising was crushed in germ with horrible cruelty.[998]William's enterprise thus stood for a pressure of need among his own subjects, as well as for an outburst of feudal ambition; and in making up his force he offered an opportunity of plunder to all classes in his own duchy, as well as to those of other provinces of France. Domesday Book, says one of its keenest students, "is a geld book"—a survey made to facilitate taxation on the lines of the old Danegeld.[999]William was repeating a Roman process. His invasion, therefore, hardly represented the full play of the existing forces of civilisation. These, indeed, had to be renewed again and again in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But the conditions of the Conquest were important for the direction of English political evolution. Its first social and psychological effect was to set up new class relations, and in particular a marked division between aristocracy and people, who spoke different languages. This involved a relation of distrust and close class union. When the people's speech began to compete with that of their masters, and the nobles separately began to be on good terms with their people, there would arise wide possibilities of strife as between neighbouring nobles and their retainers; and in Scotland the weakness of the crown long gave this free play. But in England, especially after the period of anarchy under Stephen, when the early baronage was much weakened and many estates were redivided,[1000]the strength of the crown, rooted in military custom and constantly securing itself, tended to unite the nobles as a class for their own aggrandisement and protection. King after king, therefore, sought the support of thepeople[1001]against the baronage, as the baronage sought their help against the king; while the Church fought for its own share of power and privilege.

The history of Christendom, indeed, cannot be understood save in the light of the fact that the Church, a continuous corporation owning much property as such, is as it were a State within the State,[1002]representing a special source of strife, although its non-military character limits the danger. What the Church has repeatedly done is to throw in its lot with king or nobles, or with the democracy (as in Switzerland and Protestant Scotland), according as its economic interests dictate. The famous case of Becket, transformed from the king's friend into the king's antagonist, is the most dramatic instance of the Church's necessary tendency to fight for its own hand and to act as an independent community. And it is in large part to the check and counter-check of a church, crown, and baronage, all jealously standing on their rights as against each other, that the rise of English constitutionalism is to be traced; the baronage and the Church, further, being withheld from preponderance by the strifes arising within their own pale. For even the Church, unified at once by its principle, its celibacy, its self-interest, and the pressure of outside forces, exhibits in its own sections, from time to time, the law of strife among competing interests.[1003]

The mere strife of interests, however, could not evolve civilisation in such a polity without a constant grafting-on of actual civilising elements from that southern world in which the ancient seeds were again flowering. Mere mixing of Norman with Saxon blood, one Teutonic branch with another, could avail nothing in itself beyond setting up a useful variability of type; and the element of French handicraft and culture introduced in the wake of the Conquest, though not inconsiderable,[1004]could ill survive such a pandemonium as the reign of Stephen. Like Henry I, Stephen depended on the English element as against the baronage; but the struggle brought civilisation lower than it had been since the Conquest. With the accession of Henry II (1154) came a new influx of French cultureand French speech,[1005]albeit without any departure from the monarchic policy of evoking the common people as against the nobles. Thenceforward for over a hundred years the administrative methods and the culture are French, down to the erection of a French-speaking Parliament by the southern Frenchman Simon de Montfort. The assumption that some inherent "Teutonic" faculty for self-government shaped the process is one of the superstitions of racial and national vanity.

Dr. C.H. Pearson's reiteration of the old "race" dogma (History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, i, 277) is its sufficientreductio ad absurdum. In the English manner, he connects with oldWelshusages of revenge the lateIrishtradition of "lynch law" that has been "transplanted toAmerica"—as if it were Irishmen who are to-day lynching negroes in the southern States. He explains in the same way "the contrast of French progress by revolutionary movements with the slow, constitutional, onward march of English liberty." On his own showing there was not progress, but deterioration, as regards liberty among the Saxons; and the later history of the English common people is largely one of their efforts to make revolutions. In France the revolutions were rather fewer. In Denmark and Germany, again, there was long relapse and then revolution. For the rest, Mr. Pearson has contrasted Welsh usage of thesixthcentury with Saxon usage of theeleventh, this while admitting the lateness of the latter development (pp. 275, 276). We should require only to go back to the blood-feud stage in Teutondom to prove the ineradicable tendencies of the Anglo-Saxon to theFaustrecht, which in Germany survived till the sixteenth century, and to the fisticuffs which occurred in 1895 in the English Parliament. The reasoning would be on a par with Mr. Pearson's.Mr. J.H. Round's way of taking it for granted (The Commune of London, 1899, pp. 138-40) that a tendency to strife is permanently and "truly Hibernian," belongs to the same order of thought. Irishmen are represented as abnormal in inability to unite against a common foe, when just such disunion was shown through whole centuries in Saxondom and in Scandinavia and in Germany; and they are further described as peculiar in leaving their commerce in foreign hands, when such was the notorious practice of the Anglo-Saxons.One of the most remarkable reversions to the racial way of reasoning is made by Mr. H.W. C. Davis in hisEngland under the Normans and Angevins(1905). After setting out with the avowal that the Anglo-Saxons at the Conquest were "decadent," he reaches (p. 223) the conclusion that the Teutonic races"climb, slowly and painfully it is true, but with a steady and continued progress, from stage to stage of civilisation," while the Celtic, "after soaring at the first flight to a comparatively elevated point, are inclined to be content with their achievement, and are ... passed by their more deliberate competitors." How a Teutonic race, given these premises, could be "decadent," and be surpassed and finally uplifted by a "Latin civilisation" (id.p. 2), the theorist does not attempt to explain.

Mr. J.H. Round's way of taking it for granted (The Commune of London, 1899, pp. 138-40) that a tendency to strife is permanently and "truly Hibernian," belongs to the same order of thought. Irishmen are represented as abnormal in inability to unite against a common foe, when just such disunion was shown through whole centuries in Saxondom and in Scandinavia and in Germany; and they are further described as peculiar in leaving their commerce in foreign hands, when such was the notorious practice of the Anglo-Saxons.

One of the most remarkable reversions to the racial way of reasoning is made by Mr. H.W. C. Davis in hisEngland under the Normans and Angevins(1905). After setting out with the avowal that the Anglo-Saxons at the Conquest were "decadent," he reaches (p. 223) the conclusion that the Teutonic races"climb, slowly and painfully it is true, but with a steady and continued progress, from stage to stage of civilisation," while the Celtic, "after soaring at the first flight to a comparatively elevated point, are inclined to be content with their achievement, and are ... passed by their more deliberate competitors." How a Teutonic race, given these premises, could be "decadent," and be surpassed and finally uplifted by a "Latin civilisation" (id.p. 2), the theorist does not attempt to explain.

To no virtue in Norman or English character, then,[1006]but to the political circumstances, was it due that there grew up in island England, instead of an all-powerful feudal nobility and a mainly depressed peasantry, as in continental France, a certain balance of classes, in which the king's policy against the nobility restrained and feudally weakened them, and favoured the burghers and yeomen, making sub-tenants king's liegemen; while on the other hand the combination of barons and Church against the king restrained him.[1007]A tyrant king is better for the people than the tyranny of nobles; and the destruction of feudal castles by regal jealousy restrains baronial brigandage. Regal prestige counts for something as against baronial self-assertion; but aristocratic self-esteem also rests itself, as against a reckless king, on popular sympathy. On the other hand, the town corporations, originating in popular interests, became in turn close oligarchies.[1008]Even the class tyranny of the trade gilds, self-regarding corporations in their way,[1009]looking to their own interests and indifferent to those of the outside grades beneath them,[1010]could provide a foothold for the barons in the town mobs, whom the barons could patronise.[1011]What was done by the Parliaments of Edward III to allow free entrance to foreign merchants was by way of furthering the interests of the aristocracy, who wanted to deal with such merchants, as against the English traders who wished to exclude them. Yet again, the yeomanry and burghers, fostered by the royal policy, develop an important military force, which has its own prestige.

Nothing can hinder, however, that foreign wars shall in the end aggrandise the upper as against the lower classes, developing as they do the relation of subjection, increasing the specifically militaryupper class, and setting up the spirit of force as against the spirit of law. In particular, the king's power is always aggrandised when nobility and people alike are led by him to foreign war.[1012]Edward III, indeed, had to make many legislative concessions to the Commons in order to procure supplies for his wars; and the expansion of commerce in his reign,[1013]furthered by the large influx of Flemish artisans[1014]encouraged by him,[1015]strengthened the middle classes; but all the while the "lower orders" had the worst of it; and the jealousy between traders and artisans, already vigorous in the reign of John, could not be extinguished. And when, after nearly eighty years without a great external war, Edward I invaded Scotland, there began a military epoch in which, while national unity was promoted, the depressed class was necessarily enlarged, as it had been before the Conquest during the Danish wars;[1016]and the poor went to the wall. Instinct made people and baronage alike loth at first to support the king in wars of foreign aggression; but when once the temper was developed throughout the nation, as against France, the spirit of national union helped the growth of class superiority by leaving it comparatively unchecked. In the period between the Conquest and Edward I the free population had actually increased, partly by French and Flemish immigration in the train of the Conquest; partly by Norman manumissions; partly through the arrivals of Flemish weavers exiled by domestic war;[1017]partly by the new growth of towns under Norman influence; partly by reason of the development of the wool export trade, which flourished in virtue of the law and order at length established under the Angevin kings, and so stimulated other industry. But from the beginning of the epoch of systematic national war the increase was checked; and save for the period of betterment consequent on the destruction of population by the Black Death, the condition of the peasantry substantially worsened.[1018]Frenchmen were struck by thenumber of serfs they saw in southern England as compared with France, and by the stress of their servitude.[1019]

An apparently important offset to the general restriction of freedom is the beginning of a representative parliamentary system under the auspices of Simon de Montfort (1265). It is still customary to make this departure a ground for national self-felicitation, though our later historians are as a rule content to state the historical facts, without inferring any special credit to the "Anglo-Saxon race."[1020]As a matter of fact, Simon de Montfort's Parliament was the application by a naturalised Frenchman, under stress of the struggle between his party in the baronage and the king, of an expedient set up a generation before by the Emperor Frederick II in Sicily, and a century before in Spain. There, and not in England, arose the first Parliaments in which sat together barons, prelates, and representatives of cities. Simon de Montfort, son of the leader of the crusade against the Albigenses, may well have known of the practice of Spain, where in the twelfth century the householders in the cities elected their members. But he must at least have been familiar with the details of the system set up in Sicily, to which English attention had been specially called by the effort of Henry III to obtain the Sicilian crown for his son Edmund; and Simon imitated that system in England, not on any exalted principle of justice, but because the smallness of his support among the barons forced him to make the most of the burgher class, who had stood by him in the struggle. He may even, indeed, have taken his idea proximately from the practice of the rebels in Normandy before the Conquest, when deputies from all the districts met in general assembly and bound themselves by a mutual oath.[1021]Thus accidentally[1022]introduced, under a French name,[1023]the representative system is one more of the civilising factors which England owed to Southern Europe; and, as it was, baronage and burgesses alike failed to maintain Simon against the power of the crown, the monarchic superstition availing to divide even the malcontents, as had previously happened after the granting of Magna Carta by King John.

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