" Durham's Middle Ages, Sec. 2, B. 2, Ch. l.
57 Lardner's Cab. Cyc., 53.
The "second sanction" required to give the legislation of the
king and Witan the effect of law, was undoubtedly, I think, as a
general thing, the sanction of a jury. I know of no evidence
whatever that laws were ever submitted to popular vote in the
county courts, as this author seems to suppose possible. Another
mode, sometimes resorted to for obtaining the sanction of the
people to the laws of the Witan, was, it seems, to persuade the
people themselves to swear to observe them. Mackintoshsays:
"The preambles of the laws (of the Witan) speak of the infinite
number of liegemen who attended, as only applauding the
measures of the assembly. But this applause was neither so
unimportant to the success of the measures, nor so precisely
distinguished from a share in legislation, as those who read history
with a modern eye might imagine. It appears that under Athelstan
expedients were resorted to, to obtain a consent to the law from
great bodies of the people in their districts, which their numbers
rendered impossible in a national assembly.
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