Note 37 — Chapter III
Reading edition · Edition 2
The opinion expressed in the text, that the Witan had no legislative authority, is corroborated by the following 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.