and West Saxon were to be superseded by those of the English with the Dane and Norman.

The union of England, effected by Ecgberht, was rather the combination of separate kingdoms under the lordship of Wessex than the fusion of all into one common country. The distinction between Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria still remained, in spite of the fact that now, for the first time, each acknowledged the rule of a common lord. The force that finally erased these ancient racial and territorial distinctions and welded together the inhabitants of the seven kingdoms to form a kingdom and people of England, came from without. The same course of events, which created a united English people, at the same time infused a new element into the nation. The Ninth century witnessed the beginning of the second great Teutonic migration to England. The first warnings of the threatening danger from the north came in the reign of Ecgberht, but the full force of the storm was reserved for his son and grandsons. Worn out by the hardships and difficulties of their positions, the eldest three sons of Aethelwulf followed each other to early graves, leaving the throne of England to their youngest brother, and the greatest of all Saxon Kings, Aelfred.

It was in the year of 871 that this King, to whom history has given the title "The Great," succeeded his brother, Aethelred, upon the throne. A few years of comparative calm at the outset of his reign is succeeded by the great Danish invasion of 878, before which, for a time, the whole of England lay prostrate. With a different ruler than Aelfred, this year might easily have seen the end of the Wessex monarchy and consequent change in the course of future English history. In place of this it saw the Saxon victory of Edington, followed by the treaty of Wedmore, which divided England between Dane and West Saxon. The dividing line of the Watling Road gave Northumbria, East Anglia, Essex and half of Mercia to the Danes, while Wessex retained, besides her own ancient territory, Kent, Sussex and southwestern Mercia. Later Aelfred recovered London and a part of Mercia, but the greater part of the work of re-conquest was reserved for his successors.

The remainder of the life of Aelfred is of a different char

acter. While never neglecting to provide for the military defense of his country, we see him, from now on, principally as the law-giver, the collector and reviser of law codes, the educator and civilizer of his people. The laws of Aelfred are, in the main, a compilation of the laws of earlier times. He himself makes no claim to innovation or originality. We find him saying: "I, then, Aelfred, King, these (laws) have gathered and had many of them written, which our forefathers held, those that we liked. And many of them that we not liked, I threw aside with my wise men's thought, and nowise held them. For why I durst not risk of my own much in writ to set, for why, it to me unknown was, what of them would like those after us were. But that which I met, either in Ine's laws, my kinsman, or in Offa's, the King of the Mercians, or in Aethelbert's, that erst of English Kings, baptism underwent, those that to me rightest seemed, these have I herein gathered and the others passed by. I, then, Aelfred, King of the West Saxons, to all my wise men these showed, and they then quoth that to them. it seemed good all to hold."

It is probable, however, that intermixed with the ancient laws of Ine or Offa, appeared much that was original with Aelfred himself, it may have seemed to him wisest to claim the authority of precedent for all his code, rather than to let a portion of it rest solely upon his own judgment and decree. At the least, to Aelfred is due the credit for the revision, selection and codification of the laws of his people. There was no longer one set of laws for Kent, another for Sussex, and a third for Wessex. There was one law throughout his kingdom, and as territory was from time to time wrested from the Danes, this territory also fell under the same law. Absolute uniformity there could not be; various local customs and usages had acquired strength, which enabled them to stand for centuries in opposition to the national law. Such exceptions, however, were the necessary result of the times and detract nothing from the credit due to the work of Aelfred. The inhabitants of Mercia, of Wessex and of Kent submitted to this new general law, the more readily because, in the wisdom of Aelfred, something had been taken from the laws of each. Of the laws of Northumbria

we find no trace. Domestic anarchy and foreign invasion had destroyed the laws and records of this northern kingdom, and had reduced the former center of power, education and government in the island to the position of secondary importance, which she was fated to occupy in the future.

Side by side with the revision of the law went the work of reforming the administrative side of the government. For the better organization of the army the country was divided into military districts. Each five hides of land was required to send a soldier to the army and to provide for his support. The host was divided into two halves, one of which was in the field, while the other was guarding the individual burghs, or townships. The creation of a fleet provided against invasion by sea. Aelfred continued the old familiar courts, those of the hundred and those of the shire, and endeavored to increase the power and influence of both. It was his desire that men should no longer seek to take the law into their own hands, but that all alike, Eorl and Ceorl, should be obliged to yield submission to the courts.

§ 17. United Anglo-Saxon England.—A period of external warfare is seldom an era of constitutional development and the years which follow the death of Aelfred in 901, furnish no exception to the rule. The first half of the Tenth century was occupied with the re-conquest of Northern England from the Danes. The work was begun in 901 by Eadward the Elder, the warlike son of Aelfred. Before the death of Aethelstan, Edward's son and successor, in 940, the work of conquest seemed to have been completed, and all England once more united under the rule of Wessex. It soon appeared, however, that it had been merely a reconquest and not an incorporation. The supremacy was held by the force and strength of character of Eadward the Elder and Aethelstan, and when the latter was succeeded by Eadmund, "the first of the six boy kings," in 940, northern England once more slipped away from Wessex, whose northern boundary again became the Watling Road.

It was at this period that a most remarkable character first. appeared upon the scene of English history. Dunstan, the monk of Glastonbury, began his public career during the reign

of Eadmund, and, upon the assassination of the latter in 946, and succession of his brother Eadred, he rose at once to the leading place in English politics; a position he was to hold, save for the few years embraced in the reign of Eadwig, until the death of Eadward the Martyr in 978. Dunstan stands forth, not only as the first, but also as the greatest of that long line of English Ecclesiastical statesmen, who play so prominent a part in English history for seven centuries, until the last and worst of the number fell a victim to Puritanic vengeance in the Seventeenth century. As we study the character of Dunstan we see few traces of those vices which were to mar the fame of certain of his clerical successors. His loyalty to the country which honored him was not weakened by any superior or higher claims. There was no constant effort to aggrandize the church, to which he owed allegiance, at the expense of his country. It apparently did not occur to him that his duties to church and state were or could be antagonistic; rather he seemed to have the thought that he best carried out the precepts of the one by promoting the welfare of the other.

The work of Aelfred the Great for his country was hardly greater or more many sided than that of Dunstan. In fact, Dunstan, throughout the thirty years during which he held sway in England, seemed to have largely endeavored to follow in the paths marked out by the greatest of England's kings. At the very outset of Dunstan's sway came the submission of the Danes and the final union of England; and then followed the greater work of consolidation and advancement. The corner-stone of Dunstan's policy was to bring about an English rather than a West Saxon administration. He was accused of showing too great favor to the Danes; and West Saxons, Mercians, Northumbrians and Danes alike appeared as the holders of high positions under the government.

The son and grandson of Aelfred had been unable to appreciate or sympathize with the former's efforts for advancement in law and learning; but the work which Aelfred's descendants could not do was taken up by Dunstan. The reign of Eadgar, under whom Dunstan's power was at its height, was the Augustan period of Saxon history in law, in church development,

and in learning. "Eadgar's laws," the memory of which was to be so cherished in later times, were mainly the work of Dunstan.

§ 18. Anglo-Saxon feudalism.-The Tenth century was the witness of great sociological changes in England. On the one hand slavery was being gradually crushed out, while on the other the mass of the population sank into the position of serfs. The principles of the feudal system were at last forcing themselves into English life. It was not, however, the feudal system of the Normans or of continental Europe, which we find among the Saxons. The difference between the two are so marked as to have led many to deny that England had the feudal system at all, until it was introduced by William the Conqueror. This view is, however, probably incorrect. The various aspects and phases of feudalism are many and diverse, as must necessarily be the case with any institution, which we find in so many lands and extending through so many centuries. Such differences must arise from the differing habits and characteristics of race, the slow changes and the different ways in which we find feudalism being introduced. Especially striking is the difference between the origin of feudalism with Saxon and with Norman. Feudalism began with the Normans upon their invasion of France; the land which was ceded to the leader, he in turn divided among his chiefs, who again subdivided among their followers; from the outset the possession of the land by tenant or sub-tenant carried with it the duty of military service and homage. Very different was the case in the conquest of Britain by Saxon. There was no general conquest, no common leader, no general owner of the soil. Each band became the owner of the land which its sword had conquered. The relationship of Dux and Comites, indeed, existed, and the Dux divided much of his land among his Comites, who thus supplanted the old nobilities in power and dignity. But this land was given absolutely, rather as a reward for past services than with the purpose of securing services in the future. The first beginnings of the feudal system in England appear in the reign of Aelfred. Two causes combined at this time to produce this result. The first was the re-organization of the military forces, which compelled cach