50 English and Continental Backgrounds
Alfred were very strictly limited by the customs of the
kingdom. But it cannot be said that the function of en-
forcing this limitation was vested in a clearly defined way
in the king's council. This council, known as the witan,x
an assembly of the great men of the realm, certainly exer-
cised, at times, much power. The part that such men
played in the choice of king has already been noticed,
and we know that the king's continuance in office often
depended upon their favour. In the performance of any
important act, their consent conferred an added authority.
But the relations of king and witan were never made clear,
and so great variations in practice were possible; when the
king was weak, the witan seemed to do all the governing;
when the king was strong, its share in government was
small. On his accession, the king must take a notable
oath. It was a threefold promise: first, that the Christian
church should be kept in peace; second, that all sorts of
injustice and violence should be forbidden all men; third,
that, in his judgments, he would exercise justice and mercy
that he might hope for the same from a just and merciful
God.2 The Anglo-Saxon king was no irresponsible poten-
tate; the people had no thought of such a ruler. Their
sovereign must not violate the customs and traditions of
the country, and, if he did not, there was nothing to pre-
vent his attaining much actual power; if he did, the people
resisted him irregularly and personally rather than by
recognised public right.
As to his property, the king was, in many ways, situated
like a private individual; but probably no private individ-
ual ever had so much. There was no land belonging to the
state as contrasted with that which the king held person-
ally, just as there was no distinction between the public
treasury and the king's private purse. There was not
governing enough done at the centre to make elaborate
machinery necessary; all was primitive, personal, and on
a small scale. The king's revenue consisted, in the first
place, of what was paid him by the tenants on his land,
1 See below, pp. 52-58. 2 Ibid., pp. 115, 259.