Next above the _hundred_, in order of composition, comes
the group known in ancient Italy as the_pagus_, in Attika perhaps as the
_deme_, in Germany and at first in England as the _gau_ or _ga_, at a
later date in England as the _shire_. Whatever its name, this group
answers to the _tribe_ regarded as settled upon a certain determinate
territory. Just as in the earlier nomadic life the aggregation of clans
makes ultimately the tribe, so in the more advanced agricultural life of
our Aryan ancestors the aggregation of marks or village-communities
makes ultimately the _gau_ or _shire_. Properly speaking, the name
_shire_ is descriptive of division and not of aggregation; but this term
came into use in England after the historic order of formation had been
forgotten, and when the _shire_ was looked upon as a _piece_ of some
larger whole, such as the kingdom of Mercia or Wessex. Historically,
however, the _shire_ was not made, like the _departments_ of modern
France, by the division of the kingdom for administrative purposes, but
the kingdom was made by the union of shires that were previously
autonomous. In the primitive process of aggregation, the _shire_ or
_gau_, governed by its _witenagemote_ or "meeting of wise men," and by
its chief magistrate who was called _ealdorman_ in time of peace and
_heretoga_, "army-leader," _dux_, or _duke_, in time of war,--the
_shire_, I say, in this form, is the largest and most complex political
body we find previous to the formation of kingdoms and nations.
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