witenagemot

Examples

• It had always existed in one form or another, extending back continuously to the "witenagemot" of the Anglo-Saxons.

  An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England

• A witenagemot, or supreme council, was held here by King Ethelred in the year 866, and Alfred the Great pursued his literary work here by translating the _Consolations of Boethius_, and in the grounds he had a deer-fold.

  From John O'Groats to Land's End

• For the law was but universal custom, and that custom had no sanction; but for breach of the custom anybody could make personal attack, or combine with his friends to make attack, on the person who committed the breach, and then, when the matter was taken up by the members of both tribes, and finally by the witenagemot as a judicial court, the question was, what the law was.

  Introduction to the Science of Sociology

• At least in theory, however, the Norman kings were accustomed to consult this gathering of magnates, very much as their predecessors had been accustomed to consult the witenagemot, upon all important questions of legislation, finance, and public policy.

  The Governments of Europe

• Associated with the king in the conduct of public business was the council of wise men, or witenagemot.

  The Governments of Europe

• With the conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in name but in truth; everything was changed by the conqueror's right, and the Saxons were entirely subjected.

  English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction