rved: severe vengeance was taken
for injuries, both from a point of honour, and as the best means of
future security: and the civil union being weak, many private
engagements were contracted in order to supply its place, and to
procure men that safety which the laws and their own innocence were
not alone able to insure to them.

On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body even of the free
citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty, than
where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects
are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the civil
magistrate. The reason is derived from the excess itself of that
liberty. Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and
injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and
magistrate, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by
herding in some private confederacy which acts under the direction of
a powerful leader. And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of
tyranny, if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.
Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
Wittenagemot, both in going and returning, EXCEPT THEY WERE NOTORIOUS
THIEVES AND ROBBERS.

[MN The several orders of men.]
The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were
divided into three ranks of men, the noble, the free, and the slaves
[n]. This distinction they brought over with them into Britain.
[FN [n] Nithard. Hist. lib. 4.]

The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king's
thanes and lesser thanes. The latter seem to have been dependent on
the former; and to have received lands, for which they paid rent,
services, or attendance in peace and war [o]. We know of no title
which raised any one to the rank of thane, except noble birth and the
possession of land. The former was always much regarded by all the
German nations, even in their most barbarous state; and as the Saxon
nobility, having little credit, could scarcely burthen their estates
with much debt, and as the Commons had little trade or industry by
which they could accumulate riches, these two ranks of men, even
though they were not separated by positive laws, might remain long
distinct, and the noble families continue many ages in opulence and
splendour. There were no middle ranks of men that could gradually mix
with their sup