was originally very small. He was merely the semi-hereditary general and
representative of the people, of royal stock, but elected by the free
suffrages of the freemen. Only as the kingdoms coalesced, and as the
power of meeting became consequently less, did the king acquire his
greater prerogatives. From the first, however, he seems to have
possessed the right of granting public lands, with the consent of the
freemen, to particular individuals; and such book-land, as the early
English called it, after the introduction of Roman writing, became the
origin of our system of private property in land.

Every township had its moot or assembly of freemen, which met around the
sacred oak, or on some holy hill, or beside the great stone monument of
some forgotten Celtic chieftain. Every hundred also had its moot, and
many of these still survive in their original form to the present day,
being held in the open air, near some sacred site or conspicuous
landmark. And the colony as a whole had also its moot, at which all
freemen might attend, and which settled the general affairs of the
kingdom. At these last-named moots the kings were elected; and though
the selection was practically confined to men of royal kin, the king
nevertheless represented the free choice of the tribe. Before the
conversion to Christianity, the royal families all traced their origin
to Woden. Thus the pedigree of Ida, King of Northumbria, runs as
follows:–"Ida was Eopping, Eoppa was Esing, Esa was Inguing, Ingui
Angenwiting, Angenwit Alocing, Aloc Benocing, Benoc Branding, Brand
Baldæging, Bældæg Wodening." But in later Christian times the
chroniclers felt the necessity of reconciling these heathen genealogies
with the Scriptural account in Genesis; so they affiliated Woden himself
upon the Hebrew patriarchs. Thus the pedigree of the West Saxon kings,
inserted in the Chronicle under the year 855, after conveying back the
genealogy of Æthelwulf to Woden, continues to say, "Woden was