The system of police was based on the idea of mutual responsibility. Frankpledge or _frithbohr_, by which is meant the division of the country into sections of ten men mutually responsible for one another, cannot be proved to have existed before the Conquest. On the other hand, its principle no doubt existed. Every man, by the law of Cnut, was bound to be in a Hundred and a _tithing_. This latter term cannot be accurately defined, but it was a subdivision of the Hundred. By the laws of Æthelstan and Eadgar every landless man was compelled to have a lord to answer for him in the courts, and every man a surety to answer for him if he were absent when legally required.
From this sketch it will be seen that, with regard to classes, there must have been at the time of the Conquest _Thegns_, who were to all intents and purposes feudal barons; _Sokmen_, those freemen who owed suit to the lord’s soke or court; a certain number of _Eorls_ or nobles by birth, who would most likely have become assimilated to the Thegns; _freeholders_, holding land in common where it had not yet come under the suzerainty of a lord (this same class of freemen degenerated under various circumstances and with varying tenures into villeins, or dependent cultivators, under lords); and absolute slaves, consisting originally probably of the conquered race, and added to by criminals and outlaws, or others who had lost their rights as freemen.
There was here every element of the feudal system. Even the tenure of land upon military service existed. The main distinction between the condition of England and that of the Continent, where the feudal system had been fully established, lay in this,--there still existed a certain number of freemen whose land was their own. They were indeed obliged to acknowledge the jurisdiction of a lord, but they were free to choose their own lord. They were suitors to his court, but he did not possess their land. The feudal system in its completed form may be regarded as exhibiting two peculiar features:--jurisdiction was in the hand of large landowners; and the lord was regarded as the possessor of the land over which he exercised jurisdiction. In England, one feature alone had become prominent. The judicial power was in the hand of large landowners; but their jurisdiction extended over men whose land they did not possess, but who were owners of their own property, and able to attach themselves to any lord they liked. With the Conquest, while the judicial power was restrained, the connection between that power and the possession of land over which it was exercised became absolute.