V. BOOK ment from the Jerusalem patriarch; except some donations from the pope 23, and several messages and presents from Alfred to Rome. The king appears to have sent embassies or couriers to Rome in several successive years. 24 WHEN the measures are mentioned by which Alfred endeavoured to excite in his subjects a love of letters, it will not be forgotten that the University of Oxford has been connected with his memory. THE Concurring testimonies of some respectable authors seem to prove, that he founded public schools in this city; and therefore the University, which has long existed with high celebrity, and which has enriched every department of literature and science by the talents it has nourished, may claim Alfred as one of its authors, and original benefactors. BUT this incident, plain and intelligible as it appears to be, is environed with a controversy which demands some consideration; for it involves nothing less than the decision of the superior antiquity of the two Universities of England. We intercourse was maintained by devotion between these distant places, and the west of Europe. He says, we were received there in the mansion of hospitality of the most glorious Charlemagne, in which all are received who visit this place for devotion, and who speak the Roman language. He says there was a church near it, with a most noble library from the same empire. From Jerusalem they sailed in sixty days, with an unfavourable wind, to Italy. 23 Asser, 39. The pope, at Alfred's request, liberated the Saxon school in Rome from all pecuniary payments. Ib. 24 Asser, 55. The Saxon Chronicle states, that in the years 883. 887, 888, 889, 890, Alfred's alms or letters were sent to Rome. VI. leave to abler pens the determination of the dis- CHA P. pute, and shall only notice in the note a few particulars concerning the first periods of the contest, and the point on which it turned. 25 THIS indefatigable king made also a code of His laws. laws, with the concurrence of his witena-gemot or parliament, which has been called his Dom-boc. In this, for the first time, he introduced into the Anglo-Saxon legislation, not only the decalogue, but also the principal provisions of the Mosaic legislation, contained in the three chapters which follow the decalogue, with such modifications as were necessary to adapt them to the Anglo-Saxon manners. In the laws attached to those, he mentions, that, with the concurrence of his witenagemot, he had collected together, and committed to writing, the regulations which his ancestors had established; selected such of them as he approved, and rejected the rest. He adds, that he showed them to all his witena, who declared that it pleased them all that these should be observed. Forty heads of laws then follow, on the most important subjects of the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and legislation, obviously tending to increase the national civilisation. 26 WHEN Alfred regained his throne, and with His police. that, the kingdom of Mercia, he found that the Danish invasions had so destroyed the ancient police of the kingdom, and the regular habits of the inhabitants, that the Anglo-Saxons were 25 See note 42 at the end of this chapter. 26 See those in Wilkin's Leg. Sax. p. 28-46. I cannot doubt that these compose the dom-boc which some ancient writers alluded to. BOOK infesting each other with predatory depreV. dations, 27 THE means which he took to remedy this evil, and also to provide an efficient force to repress the Danes, are stated to have been some modification of the ancient provincial divisions of England, which had long before been known as shires. The alterations which he made with these are not detailed. But it is expressly declared that he began the system of dividing them into hundreds, and these into ten parts or tithings. Under these nominal divisions, the population of the country was arranged. Every person was directed to belong to some hundred or tithing. Every hundred and tithing were pledged to the preservation of the public peace and security in their districts, and were made answerable for the conduct of their several inhabitants. In consequence of this arrangement, the inhabitants were speedily called out to repel an invader, and every criminal accused was sure to be apprehended. If he was not produced by the hundred or tithing to which he was attached, the inhabitants of these divisions incurred a general mulct. Thus every person in the district was interested in seizing or discovering the offender. If he fled, he must go to other districts, where, not having been marshalled within their jurisdiction, he would be known and punished as an outlaw, because unpledged; for he who was not pledged by some hundred and tithing, experienced all the severity of the law. 28 It is added 27 Ingulf, 28.; Malmsbury, 44.; and the Chronicle of Joannes de Oxenedes. Cott. MSS. Nero, D. 2. This chronicle is not much more than an abridgment of Malmsbury. 28 Ingulf, 28. Malmsb. 44. VI. to this statement, that Alfred divided the provincial CHA P. prefects into two officers, judges and sheriffs. 20 -Until his time there were only sheriffs. He separated, by the appointment of justices or judges, the judicial from the executing department of the law, and thus provided an improved administration of law and justice. That golden bracelets were hung up in the public roads, and were not pilfered, is mentioned as a fact, which evidenced the efficacy of his police. THE unsettled state of society in Saxon-England, and that twilight of mind, which every where appears at this period, may have justified these severe provisions. They are, however, liable to such objections, that though we may admit them to have been necessary to Alfred, no modern government can wish to have them imitated. They may have suppressed robbery; they may have perpetuated public peace; but they were calculated to keep society in a bondage the most pernicious. They must have prevented that free intercourse, that incessant communication, that unrestricted travelling, which have produced so much of our 29 Præfectos vero provinciarum qui antea vicedomini vocabantur in duo officia divisit, id est, in judices quos nunc justiciarios vocamus et in vice comites qui adhuc idem nomen retinent. Ingulf, 28. We will briefly remark here, that the Welsh anciently had the territorial divisions of cantref, a hundred, which contained two cymmwd; each of these had twelve maenawr, and two tref; in every maenawr were four tref, or towns; in every town four gafael, each of which contained four rhandir; every rhandir was composed of sixteen acres. Thus every cantref contained, as the name imports, an hundred towns, or 25,600 acres. Leges Wallicæ, p. 157, 158. The preface to these laws states South Wales to have contained sixty-four cantrefs, and North Wales eighteen. Ibid. p. 1. The cantref and the cymmwd had each a court to determine controversies. Ibid. p. 389. V. BOOK political and literary prosperity. They made every hundred and tithing little insulated populations, to which all strangers were odious. By causing every member of each district to become responsible for the conduct of every other, they converted neighbours into spies; they incited curiosity to pry into private conduct; and as selfishness is generally malignant, when in danger of meeting injury, they must have tended to legalise habits of censoriousness and acrimonious calumny. THAT Alfred was assiduous to procure to his people the blessing of a correct and able administration of justice, we have the general testimony of Asser. He not only gave the precept, but he exhibited the example; he was a patient and minute arbiter in judicial investigations, and this, chiefly for the sake of the poor, to whose affairs, amongst his other duties, he day and night earnestly applied himself. 30 WHEN We reflect that Alfred had, in the beginning of his reign, transgressed on this point, he claims our applause for his noble self-correction. It was highly salutary to his subjects; "for," says Asser, in all his kingdom, the poor had no helpers, or very few besides him. The rich and powerful, ingrossed with their own concerns, were inattentive to their inferiors. They studied their private not the public good." 31 ALFRED applied to the administration of justice, because it was then so little understood, and so little valued by the people, that both noble and inferior persons were accustomed to dispute pertinaciously with each other in the very tribunals of |