anglo saxon society and goverment
- Created by: D4nny177
- Created on: 21-02-17 21:03
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- Anglo-Saxon society and goverment
- The witan
- the witan were a group of powerful men from all of England who advised and helped the king on issues such as threats from foreign powers and land disputes
- they were made up of the wealthiest and most powerful earls, archbishops and other nobles in the country
- they decided who the kings heir would be
- they had meetings every so often to talk about the issues in the country
- the witan were only advisors to the king though and could only give him advise
- the power of the king
- powers of the king
- law making- he created new laws and made sure they were enforced
- money- the king made all of the money
- land ownership- the king granted land to his followers and could take land from his enemies
- military- he could raise a national army
- tax- the king set the tax and decided when they should be payed
- the duties of the people
- to obey the laws
- to use the kings coins and not forge fakes
- paying tax and military service
- general info
- the king had to protect his people from attack and in turn people owed him service
- kings held their power because of their armies and whiles Edward himself wasn't a warrior king, his thegns and earls were a strong army
- powerful earls could challenge the kings power. earls like Harold Godwinson did this a lot. he was in fact as rich and powerful as the king.
- powers of the king
- earldoms and local government
- earldoms
- earldoms were introduced by king Cnut in 1015. they were a way of splitting the country into more manageable smaller sections
- earls jobs
- collecting taxes, receiving a third of the revenue for themselves. this money was used to run and defend the earldom
- they provided a lot of soldiers for the army, these included normal peasants and housecarls
- they oversaw all legal action and justice in their earldoms. this made them very influential
- earls power
- earls were only as powerful as the king allowed them to be so kings like Cnut only let them get so powerful and destroyed any who were disobedient or displeased him
- Edward was lenient with his earls and relied on key earls like Harold Godwinson to help govern the country
- thegns could team up to kick out any earls they don't like
- shires
- to help the earls govern the earldoms they were split into shire
- each shire has its own court and a shire reeve was the judge
- a shire reeve acts as the kings representative
- each shire had a burh (a fortified town) as the centre of trade and administration in the shire
- each shire provided men for the fyrd, which was an army made up of normal people. it lasted around 40 days
- shires were divided into hundreds which was split into tithings (sets of 10 households)
- earldoms
- the social system
- the classes
- thralls
- they were slaves and were seen as property and not people. they were not punished though or then they wouldn't be able to do as much work. their lives were worth hardly anything
- ceorls
- ceorls were free peasants, they were protected by the law. they also owed military service and tax in the form of food
- thegns
- thegns were the aristocrats during the Anglo-Saxon times. they lived in big manor houses and went to royal court.
- thegns pay a heriot tax to provide them with equipment and soldier for war
- ealdormen
- ealdormen were the closest people to the king and commanded the kings provinces for him
- thralls
- the class system was quite rigid and people could move between one class to the other by aquiring wealth
- women
- women had legal rights and were powerful in their own right, the money belonged to both the man and the women in marriage and if there was a divorce the money would be split between them
- a lot of wealthy women were well educated
- the classes
- legal system
- wergild
- wergild was the amount of money a family would have to pay to the victims family for attacking another person
- ceorls are worth less than thegns who were worth less than earls
- if the tax wasn't payed then the victims family could kill the attacker
- folk moots
- if f a person was accused of a crime and they said that they were innocent then the accused would have to get so many people in an allocated amount of time to confirm that he isn't lying
- if they failed the witnesses then they had to go through trial by ordeal. this is where if they fail to do something painful and dangerous they would be said to have been deemed guilty by god.
- wergild
- The witan
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