France, were powerful enough to disturb the execution of the laws, we
may judge of the authority acquired by the aristocracy in England.
When Earl Godwin besieged the Confessor in London, he summoned from
all parts his huscarles or houseceorles and retainers, and thereby
constrained his sovereign to accept of the conditions which he was
pleased to impose upon him.
[FN [r] Winchester, being the capital of the West Saxon monarchy, was
anciently a considerable city. Gul. Pict. p. 210. [s] Norwich
contained 738 houses, Exeter 315, Ipswich 538, Northampton 60,
Hereford 146, Canterbury 262, Bath 64, Southampton 84, Warwick 225.
See Brady of Boroughs, p. 3, 4, 5, 6, &c. These are the most
considerable he mentions. The account of them is extracted from
Domesday-book. [t] Brady's Treatise of Boroughs, p. 10. There were
six wards, besides the archbishop's palace; and five of these wards
contained the number of families here mentioned, which, at the rate of
five persons to a family, makes about 7000 souls. The sixth ward was
laid waste. [u] p. 102. See also, De Gest. Angl. p. 333.]

The lower rank of freemen were denominated ceorles among the
Anglo-Saxons; and, where they were industrious, they were chiefly
employed in husbandry: whence a ceorle and a husbandman became in a
manner synonymous terms. They cultivated the farms of the nobility or
thanes, for which they paid rent; and they seem to have been
removeable at pleasure. For there is little mention of leases among
the Anglo-Saxons; the pride of the nobility, together with the general
ignorance of writing, must have rendered these contracts very rare,
and must have kept the husbandmen in a dependent condition. The rents
of farms were then chiefly paid in kind [w].
[FN [w] LL. Inae, Sec. 70. These laws fixed the rents for a hide; but
it is difficult to convert it into modern measures.]

But the most numerous rank by far in the community seems to have been
the slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were
consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property. Dr.
Brady assures us, from a survey of Domesday-book [x], that in all the
counties of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by
them, and that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were
tenants that could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in
comparison. This was not the case with the German nations, as far as
we can collect from the account give