he inferior assemblies. All persons, of whatever rank, attended at the
county courts; but they did not go there as judges, they went to sue for
justice,--to be informed of their duty, and to be bound to the
performance of it. Thus all sorts of people attended at the
Witenagemotes, not to make laws, but to attend at the promulgation of
the laws;[61] as among so free a people every institution must have
wanted much of its necessary authority, if not confirmed by the general
approbation. Lambard is of opinion that in these early times the commons
sat, as they do at this day, by representation from shires and boroughs;
and he supports his opinion by very plausible reasons. A notion of this
kind, so contrary to the simplicity of the Saxon ideas of government,
and to the genius of that people, who held the arts and commerce in so
much contempt, must be founded on such appearances as no other
explanation can account for.

To the reign of Henry the Second, the citizens and burgesses were little
removed from absolute slaves. They might be taxed individually at what
sum the king thought fit to demand; or they might be discharged by
offering the king a sum, from which, if he accepted it, the citizens
were not at liberty to recede; and in either case the demand was exacted
with severity, and even cruelty. A great difference is made between
taxing them and those who cultivate lands: because, says my author,
their property is easily concealed; they live penuriously, are intent by
all methods to increase their substance, and their immense wealth is not
easily exhausted. Such was their barbarous notion of trade and its
importance. The same author, speaking of the severe taxation, and
violent method of extorting it, observes that it is a very proper
method,--and that it is very just that a degenerate officer, or other
freeman, rejecting his condition for sordid gain, should be punished
beyond the common law of freemen.

I take it that those who held by ancient demesne did not prescribe
simply not to contribute to the expenses of the knight of the shire; but
they prescribed, as they did in all cases, upon a general principle, to
pay no tax, nor to attend any duty of whatever species, because they
were the king's villains. The argument is drawn from the poverty of the
boroughs, which ever since the Conquest have been of no consideration,
and yet send members to Parliament; which they could not do, but by some
privileges inherent in them,