g authorities:

"From the fact that the new laws passed by the king and the Witan were
laid before the shire-mote, (county court,) we should be almost
justified in the inference that a second sanction was necessary before
they could have the effect of law in that particular county."--_Dunham's
Middle Ages, Sec._ 2, _B._ 2, _Ch._ 1. _57 Lardner's Cab. Cyc._, 53.

The "_second sanction_" required to give the legislation of the king and
Witan the effect of law, was undoubtedly, I think, _as a general thing,
the sanction of a jury_. I know of no evidence whatever that laws were
ever submitted to popular vote in the county courts, as this author
seems to suppose possible. Another mode, sometimes resorted to for
obtaining the sanction of the people to the laws of the Witan, was, it
seems, to persuade the people themselves to swear to observe them.
Mackintosh says:

"The preambles of the laws (of the Witan) speak of the infinite number
of _liegemen_ who attended, as only applauding the measures of the
assembly. But this applause was neither so unimportant to the success of
the measures, nor so precisely distinguished from a share in
legislation, as those who read history with a modern eye might imagine.
It appears that under Athelstan expedients were resorted to, to obtain a
consent to the law from great bodies of the people in their districts,
which their numbers rendered impossible in a national assembly. That
monarch appears to have sent commissioners to hold _shire-gemotes_ or
county meetings, where they proclaimed the laws made by the king and his
counsellors, which, being acknowledged and sworn to at these
_folk-motes_ (meetings of the people) became, by their assent,
completely binding on the whole nation."--_Mackintosh's Hist. of
England_, _Ch._ 2. _45 Lardner's Cab. Cyc._, 75.]

[Footnote 38: Page 31.]

[Footnote 39: Hallam says, "It was, however, to the county court that an
English freeman chiefly looked for the maintenance of his civil
rights."--_2 Middle Ages_, 392.

Also, "This (the county court) was the great constitutional judicature
in all questions of civil right."--_Ditto_, 395.

Also, "The liberties of these Anglo-Saxon thanes were chiefly secured,
next to their swords and their free spirits, by the inestimable right of
deciding civil and criminal suits in their own county courts."--_Ditto_,
399.]

[Footnote 40: "Alfred may, in one sense, be called the founder of these
laws, (the Saxon,) for until