nted that stable tenure in the lands which the
copyholders came to in very early times. The merely servile part of the
nation seems never to have been known by the name of Villains or
Ceorles, but by those of Bordars, Esnes, and Theowes.

[Sidenote: Tithing Court.]

As there were large tracts throughout the country not subject to the
jurisdiction of any thane, the inhabitants of which were probably some
remains of the ancient Britons not reduced to absolute slavery, and such
Saxons as had not attached themselves to the fortunes of any leading
man, it was proper to find some method of uniting and governing these
detached parts of the nation, which had not been brought into order by
any private dependence. To answer this end, the whole kingdom was
divided into Shires, these into Hundreds, and the Hundreds into
Tithings.[58] This division was not made, as it is generally imagined,
by King Alfred, though he might have introduced better regulations
concerning it; it prevailed on the continent, wherever the Northern
nations had obtained a settlement; and it is a species of order
extremely obvious to all who use the decimal notation: when for the
purposes of government they divide a county, tens and hundreds are the
first modes of division which occur. The Tithing, which was the smallest
of these divisions, consisted of ten heads of families, free, and of
some consideration. These held a court every fortnight, which they
called the Folkmote, or Leet, and there became reciprocally bound to
each other and to the public for their own peaceable behavior and that
of their families and dependants. Every man in the kingdom, except those
who belonged to the seigneurial courts we have mentioned, was obliged to
enter himself into some tithing: to this he was inseparably attached;
nor could he by any means quit it without license from the head of the
tithing; because, if he was guilty of any misdemeanor, his district was
obliged to produce him or pay his fine. In this manner was the whole
nation, as it were, held under sureties: a species of regulation
undoubtedly very wise with regard to the preservation of peace and
order, but equally prejudicial to all improvement in the minds or the
fortunes of the people, who, fixed invariably to the spot, were
depressed with all the ideas of their original littleness, and by all
that envy which is sure to arise in those who see their equals
attempting to mount over them. This rigid order deadened