Before coming to the period when the Danish invasions (which, however, had already begun) became a matter of annual occurrence, it may be well to see what changes had been effected in the social system of our ancestors since their migration from the banks of the Elbe.
The system of land-owning was much changed, and private property in land became the rule rather than the exception. At first land was allotted to each village, and every family had a portion, known as a _hide_, as its share. The dimensions of the hide appear to have varied according to locality; as a rule it comprised from thirty to forty acres, but in later times it covered as much as a hundred and twenty. The remainder of the land was theoretically public property, and hence was called _folkland_; but it was in the hands of the king, who, with the assent of the Witena-gemot, made grants of it from time to time to his thegns, or to the great monasteries, when it was known as _bookland_, land that is granted out on copyhold tenure--to use a modern legal equivalent, which is fairly exact. _Ethel_, or _alod_, was land held by undisputed possession from the first settlement, and which could be transmitted from father to son. The owners of _Ethel_ had no title-deeds to show, but based their claim to ownership on tradition. Later on, however, the distinction between _Ethel_ and _bookland_ disappears, the owners of the former finding it a safer course to get a charter for their property.
As to the administration of the English kingdoms, the important point to notice is that it was not entirely in the hands of a central authority, but each local community had its own affairs in its hands to a very considerable extent. In viewing the social organism, it will be well to start, as before, from the village community, whether in the form of _vicus_ or rural township, _town_ or group of houses surrounded by a quickset hedge or _tun_, and _borough_ the dwellings round the fortified house (_burh_) of a great noble. In each of these there was a _moot_, or local assembly, presided over by a magistrate or _reeve_, who was at first elected by the general body of the inhabitants, but later on appointed by the neighbouring nobility. So, too, the judicial functions of these petty assemblies were rapidly taken from them, and cases were tried instead at the manor-courts of the great lords.