eriors, and insensibly procure to themselves honour and
distinction. If by any extraordinary accident a mean person acquired
riches, a circumstance so singular made him be known and remarked; he
became the object of envy, as well as of indignation, to all the
nobles; he would have great difficulty to defend what he had acquired;
and he would find it impossible to protect himself from oppression,
except by courting the patronage of some great chieftain, and paying a
large price for his safety.
[FN [o] Spellm. Feuds and Tenures, p. 40.]

There are two statutes among the Saxon laws which seem calculated to
confound those different ranks of men; that of Athelstan, by which a
merchant, who had made three long sea voyages on his own account, was
entitled to the quality of thane [p]; and that of the same prince, by
which a ceorle or husbandman, who had been able to purchase five hides
of land, and had a chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell, was raised
to the same distinction [q]. But the opportunities were so few, by
which a merchant or ceorle could thus exalt himself above his rank,
that the law could never overcome the reigning prejudices; the
distinction between noble and base blood would still be indelible; and
the well-born thanes would entertain the highest contempt for those
legal and factitious ones. Though we are not informed of any of these
circumstances by ancient historians, they are so much founded on the
nature of things, that we may admit them as a necessary and infallible
consequence of the situation of the kingdom during those ages.
[FN [p] Wilkins, p. 71. [q] Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 515.
Wilkins, p. 70.]

The cities appear by Domesday-book to have been at the Conquest little
better than villages [r]. York itself, though it was always the
second, at least the third [s], city in England, and was the capital
of a great province, which never was thoroughly united with the rest,
contained but one thousand four hundred and eighteen families [t].
Malmsbury tells us [u], that the great distinction between the
Anglo-Saxon nobility, and the French or Norman was, that the latter
built magnificent and stately castles; whereas the former consumed
their immense fortunes in riot and, hospitality, and in mean houses.
We may thence infer, that the arts in general were much less advanced
in England than in France; a greater number of idle servants and
retainers lived about the great families; and as these, even in