Sentence:  To this study was necessarily added that of the ecclesiastical canons; and the knowledge of each must have given the clergy a great superiority, both as legislators in the <WSD>witenagemot</WSD>, and as magistrates in the different courts, at which it was their duty to attend. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Any of several assemblies which existed in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th to the 11th century, initially with regional jurisdiction (there being different ones in Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex and Wessex), later with national jurisdiction, made up of important noblemen.