The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-01-28

and Thor! subverters of Christianity
and a higher civilization than their
own! Merciless butchers, who devasta-
ted the land with fire and sword and
refused all quarter to the race they
dispossessedl
Yes, all this and more.
In their conquest of determination
our fierce fOrefathers swept away the
language, the literature, religion, Gus
toms and laws of Birton and Roman
and transplanted in that plundered soil
their own. But from the ashes of this
ruin sprang nObler type of manhood
than that which persisted in the flame.
Following the Angles came their kin
dred the Saxons, from the same Ger
man shore, with Cerdic at their head,
who gave to the new Anglo-Saxon Eng
land it's first dynasty of kings.
And so it will be in the manners and
customs of the primitive Angles and
Saxons that we shall find the first rud-
iments of the English constitution.
On an occasion such as this when the
greatest of all the graces is breVlty,
you would beg to give me leave to print
if I presumed even to open up so
charming a theme as the early manners
and customs, religion and laws of the
primitive Angles and Saxons In their
Fatherland, and in Old England before
the Norman Conquest.
1t must content me for the most part
to refer you to the Angn dwelling upon
the Lower Elb as Tacitus describes
them Is hundred years ago, and the
Saxons in HOlstein as found by PtOlen1y
A. D. 120, and to the Salic Law; the
Lex Angliorum and the Lex SaXon1Tn
The ancient Angles and SaXOnS had
no kings, and it is curious that king
ship among them was the product OF
conquest on British soil.
Caesar describes the German tribes as
having no central magiStracy but a
common council for each tribe.
Tacitus says in the German1a that
a few of the tribes were monarch1cal,
but most of them had no kings. They
chose their leaders and maintained a
civitas or state, the general assembly
of which was a gathering of the hostes,
open to all the freemen of the tribe.
There were classes, nObilesN ingenui, Ii
berti and servi, and ranks among the
mobiles, principles, duces and SacerdOteS.
In the century and a half from Cae-
sar to Tacitus we seem to see the end
of nomadic life, and the beginnings OF
vested individual property in land
The several Germanic tribes We're
bound together by kinship, similarity OF
race, tongue, religion and manners,
which were preserved and propagated
by imitation not by authority.
From what we know of the progress
of barbarOus races it is easy to believe
that during the two centuries after
Tacitus when we practically lose sight
of the Angles and SaxOns their pro-
gress in civilization was slow.
Such as it was, they brought their
civilization with them, in the fifth cen
fury to Britain. There were then the
mobiles, the freemen and the slaves
Their simplest political division, the
Vicus was the township, which is the
modern English parish. The pagus or
hundred was presided over by the
bishop or eOrl.
There were traces of the Mark sys-
tenn. There was always the right OF
election of all chiefs and leaders. There
was the Frank Pledge, and the enforced
dependence of every man on some great
noble. whereby the ceorl became the
eorl's man, and, though a freeman
practically bound to the soil.
The new conditions brought great
changes. New strifes brought new en-
ergencies. The step from ealderman to
king would follow easily after some
great victory. 1t was habit of the
kings of old time to fancy they were
descended from the gods; hence we
presently find the house of Cerdic the
hneal descendants of Wooden
A heptarchy of petty princes is not a
state but when they become merged
into one united kingdom there comes
the consciousness of individual nation
ality, and their manners and customs
are the fundamental law of the land,
and when recognized as such, they are
the constitution, without any writing or
signing or enactment and even without
any legislature.
The great council or general assembly
of the wise men, called the Witenage-
mote, was the fountain of all power. 1t
made the unmade kings. 1t was the
court of last resort. It made the laws.
It levied the taxes. 1t freely cOunseled
of the great landed nobility, the arch
bishops, bishops, abbots, priors and
knights; but the commons had no voice
in the AnglO-SaXOn WitenagemOte-
It was pre-eminently a government of
the aristocracy to which the great men
of the realm were summoned by the
king, and attended in person, in their
own behalf.
Not until two hundred years after the
Norman Conquest, is there anything
approaching representation
The story of the Norman Conquest,
with all its lessons and notifications of
existing institutions is one of the rich
est mines in the history of civilization.
1t is not worth while to cucumber
ones head with many dates, but a few
are worth remembering. Among them
is 1866
with the fall of the Saxon monarchy
came the powerful personality of the
Conqueror; and the Normans, with their
pride, their arrogance, their contempt
for the Saxons and for all labOrers and
craftsmen; but also with their courage,
their intellectual and physical vigOr,
their statecraft, and their broader civ
ilization.
There was no such difference between
Norman and Saxon as between Saxon
and Briton. They were from kin
dred stock, and above all they had
adopted a common religion. Five hun
dred years before the ConquerOr, St.
Augustine had landed at EbbSfieet on
the very spot where, a century and a
half before, Hengist and Horsa first set
foot. This little village in the Isle of
Thanet should be held more in honor
than any spot in England, for it well
coined the race to its new fatherland,
from whence it has replenished the
earth; and it welcomed the standard of
the Savior of mankind.
The assimilation of the races was
slow, but it saxonized the Norman, in
stead of nOrmanizing the Saxon.
The modification was great but the
result was immense growth in individ-
uaI and national character. The great
est modification of SaxtOn institutions
was the complete adoption of the Feu-
dal system.