But when people are dispersed over a wide tract of
country, the primary assembly inevitably shrinks up into an assembly of
such persons as can best afford the time and trouble of attending it, or
who have the strongest interest in going, or are most likely to be
listened to after they get there. Distance and difficulty, and in early
times danger too, keep many people away. And though a shire is not a
wide tract of country for most purposes, and according to modern ideas,
it was nevertheless quite wide enough in former times to bring about the
result I have mentioned. In the times before the Norman conquest, if not
before the completed union of England under Edgar, the shire-mote or
county assembly, though in theory still a folk-mote or primary assembly,
had shrunk into what was virtually a witenagemote or assembly of the
most important persons in the county. But the several townships, in
order to keep their fair share of control over county affairs, and not
wishing to leave the matter to chance, sent to the meetings each its
_representatives_ in the persons of the town-reeve and four "discreet
men." I believe it has not been determined at what precise time this
step was taken, but it no doubt long antedates the Norman conquest. It
is mentioned by Professor Stubbs as being already, in the reign of Henry
III.
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