form is preserved in the tradition of his confirming the ancient laws
reported to him by the representatives of the shires. The _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_ enumerates the classes of men who attended his great courts:
"There were with him all the great men over all England, archbishops and
bishops, abbots and earls, thegns and knights."

The great suit between Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury and Odo as
Earl of Kent, which is perhaps the best reported trial of the reign, was
tried in the county court of Kent before the King's representative,
Gosfrid, bishop of Coutances; whose presence and that of most of the
great men of the kingdom seem to have made it a witenagemot. The
archbishop pleaded the cause of his Church in a session of three days on
Pennenden Heath; the aged South-Saxon bishop, Ethelric, was brought by
the King's command to declare the ancient customs of the laws; and with
him several other Englishmen skilled in ancient laws and customs. All
these good and wise men supported the archbishop's claim, and the
decision was agreed on and determined by the whole county. The sentence
was laid before the King, and confirmed by him. Here we have probably a
good instance of the principle universally adopted; all the lower
machinery of the court was retained entire, but the presence of the
Norman justiciar and barons gave it an additional authority, a more
direct connection with the king, and the appearance at least of a joint
tribunal.

The principle of amalgamating the two laws and nationalities by
superimposing the better consolidated Norman superstructure on the
better consolidated English substructure, runs through the whole policy.

The English system was strong in the cohesion of its lower organism, the
association of individuals in the township, in the hundred, and in the