We also find it ratifying or annulling those acts of county-courts which had reference not to private matters, but to affairs of general importance.
The principle of the responsibility of the agents of power was not more clearly and firmly established in the Anglo-Saxon monarchy than the other great principles of free government; but it was, nevertheless, confusedly practised. A vague feeling of justice pervaded these national assemblies; they repressed great abuses, but frequently punished injustice by injustice.
The Wittenagemot in England possessed a power which was not generally exercised by corresponding assemblies on the Continent; it had the oversight of the royal domain. Originally, the kings lived, like other landowners, on the income derived from their own private estates. Their property was a private domain, which they managed as they pleased. As time rolled on, this domain became very largely augmented by confiscations; but the kings, compelled to defend their tottering authority from the frequent attacks to which it was subjected, were incessantly diminishing their estates by gifts to powerful and formidable chiefs. Frequently, also, when they were strong, they resumed the gifts which necessity had extorted from them. The little reliance to be placed upon these purely royal donations, unless they were ratified by the consent of the national assembly; and the knowledge that, if the king were permitted these forced dilapidations of his own domains, the Wittenagemot would one day be obliged to repair them, and compensate the monarch for the loss of his private estates,--were the reasons which led to the interference of the national assembly in the administration of the royal domain. In France, this domain did not fall so soon under the influence of the national assemblies, but remained for a much longer period the private property of the kings.
{ 51} Direction Of Ecclesiastical Affairs.
One of the most important attributes of the Wittenagemot was the direction of ecclesiastical affairs. The abbots and bishops, indeed all the high clergy, were members of this assembly. In France, although the clergy formed a part of the national assemblies, they treated of their own affairs as a separate body, and communicated directly with the king. In England, ecclesiastical matters, like all other business, were discussed in the general assembly. For instance, when missionaries from Rome came to invite the kings of the Heptarchy to embrace the Christian religion, the kings replied that they must ask the consent of the Wittenagemot. In Sweden, the king, who had already become a convert himself, proposed to the assembled Diet to adopt Christianity. The Diet sanctioned the new religion, but retained the old creed, and this simultaneous practice of the two religions lasted for a considerable time. The Wittenagemot had not always to discuss such important matters as the conversion of the nation; it appointed bishops, and ordained or sanctioned the foundation of abbeys and monasteries.