view of subsequent institutional history the most important features
of the Anglo-Saxon governmental system were kingship, the witenagemot,
and the units of local administration--shire, hundred, borough, and
township.[2]

[Footnote 2: See G. B. Adams, The Origin of the
English Constitution (New Haven, 1912), Chap. 1.
That the essentials of the English constitution of
modern times, in respect to forms and machinery,
are products of the feudalization of England which
resulted from the Norman Conquest, and not
survivals of Anglo-Saxon governmental arrangements,
is the well-sustained thesis of this able study.
That many important elements, however, were
contributed by Anglo-Saxon statecraft is beyond
dispute.]

*3. Kingship.*--The origins of Anglo-Saxon kingship are shrouded in
obscurity, but it is certain that the king of later days was
originally nothing more than the chieftain of a victorious war-band.
During the course of the occupation of the conquered island many
chieftains attained the dignity of kingship, but with the progress of
political consolidation one after another of the royal lines was
blotted out, old tribal kingdoms became mere administrative districts
of larger kingdoms, and, eventually, in the ninth century, the whole
of the occupied portions of the country were brought under the control
of a single sovereign. Saxon kingship was elective, patriarchal, and,
in respect to power, limited. Kings were elected by the important men
sitting in council, and while the dignity was hereditary in a family
supposedly descended from the gods, an immediate heir was not unlikely
to be passed over in favor of a relative who was remoter but abler.[3]
In both pagan and Christian times the royal office was invested with a
pronouncedly sacred character. As early as 690 Ine was king "by God's
grace." But the actual authority of the king was such as arose
principally from the dignity of his office and from the personal
influence of the individual monarch.[4] The king was primarily a
war-leader. He was a law-giver, but his "dooms" were likely to be
framed only in consultation with the wise men, and they pertained to
little else than the preservation of the peace. He was supreme (p. 004)
judge, and all crimes and bre