Chapter III: Preface: To the New Edition

The original edition of this monumental work having for a long time been out of print and of enhanced value, a great demand has arisen for the issue of a new edition; and the welcome opportunity of amending a number of oversights and typographical errors, and of verifying a large number of references, has not been neglected. The book itself is of so standard a character, and was so well digested in the first place, that no apology is needed for its re-publication now—more than a quarter of a century after its first appearance.

The principles laid down, the deductions gathered from the array of recorded facts and examples, are as true and incontrovertible to-day as they ever were. The work, therefore, does not labour under the disadvantage of becoming obsolete, inasmuch as the researches which have since been made in this branch of literary and historical enquiry have not tended to weaken or destroy, but rather to support and strengthen, the arguments applied by the author to the gradual unfolding of his theories of the growth and consolidation of the Anglosaxon Commonwealth, and the Royal Authority in England.

It is worthy of remembrance that one of the chief authorities for the views advanced in this History is the celebrated _Codex Diplomaticus_, the printing of which occupied nine years of the author’s life. The re-editing of that great work, under new arrangement, with collations, and incorporation of a large quantity of newly found material, has now so clearly become a necessity, that steps should be taken to re-publish the enormous collection of documents relating to Anglosaxon times and Anglosaxon history.

No one can read the summary of Kemble’s investigations, which is contained in the concluding chapter to the First Volume, without feeling bound to acknowledge that its pages contain the heartfelt convictions of one who has spared no pains to mature his own knowledge of the inner springs which actuated the conduct of our forefathers’ lives and advanced their culture, nor failed in his endeavour to impart to his readers a correct view of these important elements of our own manners and customs;—in Kemble’s own words, “the history of our childhood, the explanation of our manhood.”

W. DE G. B.

London,
September 11th, 1876.

CONTENTS.

VOL. I.

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BOOK I.

THE ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE ANGLOSAXON COMMONWEALTH.

CHAPTER Page

I. Saxon and Welsh Traditions 1

II. The Mark 35

III. The Gá or Scír 72

IV. Landed Possession. The Eðel, Híd, or Alod 88

V. Personal Rank. The Freeman. The Noble 122

VI. The King 137

VII. The Noble by Service 162

VIII. The Unfree. The Serf 185

IX. The Mutual Guarantee. Mægburh. Tithing. Hundred 228

X. Fǽhðe. Wergyld 267

XI. Folcland. Bócland. Lǽnland 289

XII. Heathendom 327

APPENDIX.

A. Marks 449

B. The Híd 487

C. Manumission of Serfs 496

D. Orcy’s Guild at Abbotsbury 511

E. Lǽnland 517

F. Heathendom 523

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THE
SAXONS IN ENGLAND.

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