Anglo-Saxon Institutions. 449-1066 65
some antiquity and barbarity of custom and ceremony—
these were the leading characteristics of the pre-Conqtiest
church.
5. Conditions on the Eve of the Conquest.—In taking
leave of the Anglo-Saxon period, we are concerned espe-
cially to note those aspects of government which are
likely to remain of importance after a conquest which
brought in, not a large new population, but a new king
and the aristocracy of a conquering army in which were
many nobles or those who could appropriately become
nobles. The new ideas which such a conquest was bound
to bring with it would relate to the central power and to
large-scale landholding. What would remain important
would be the local government (full nine-tenths of all
the governing there had been in the Anglo-Saxon period)
and small-scale landholding. And it has been sufficiently
insisted upon that government and landholding had a
close connection in the middle ages.
Judged comparatively Anglo-Saxon England had been
peaceful. It was something over five centuries from the
time when the Angles and Saxons themselves had com-
pleted their conquest and settled down to a fairly quiet
life to the Battle of Hastings. During that time there
had been the one great destructive episode or series of
episodes—the Danish invasions and conquest. But tak-
ing those into full account there had been long periods and
large areas of country that had enjoyed peace. There
had been no important or long-continued peril on either
the Scotch or Welsh border. The Danish peril had been
the one great peril for deliverance from which the Anglo-
Saxons prayed. It is beyond question that insularity
with its comparative security had played its part in bring-
ing the Anglo-Saxons to the eleventh century, through a
long period of settled life in which were the feudalising
tendencies incident to a growing population and demands
on government, with a large part of the people still neither
distinctly noble nor servile. It is the ever-present fear
and burden of war that splits a people into a fighting