353
It was the
method,x
la with the the
developing little by a
were certainly becoming of it as
thing of the representative is in
kind of government, and it is to the of
so general a principle. But a of
things more along this line in England the
tithingman represented the tithing, the lord or
represented the manor in the or when
could not the reeve four did? every of
jury represented its neighbourhood—it the
bourhoodfs knowledge or or the
furnished. While is of the of
sentation in medieval church polity, yet in its
rise and gradual working out to a in
government lie quite clearly outside the church,
nothing contributed so much to its as the
nomenal use of juries of all the of
II.a Popular election is a
1" Norman and Plantagenet rulers learning much about
institutions and conditions-—about hundred and shire courts, about tith-
ing and frankpledge, about the boroughs, about freeholder* and knights.
They saw always more work to do, more information to be sought,
ways to develop their courts, to swell their revenue, to keep the country in
peace. The work was so varied that all^ sorts of men, official and unoffi-
cial, might be employed. Some of it, indeed, could be better by
unofficial means; there were temporary and isolated jobs in plenty.
so in this turbulent time, when the crash of the Conquest hat! bar-
riers and opened ways and England was making ready for her
reach forward in civilization, these new relations center local-
ity were big with possibilities. Knight and freeholder—the out c£
which the House of Commons was made-Hiad upon their appren-
ticeship in public service; and many principles apd devices
hammered out in the daily practice of administration had an
tmguessed future before them in the broader of polity,"*—
W. and N.r pp. 74, 75.
3 Yet its presence in the churcla surely favoured its growth; the s
great advisers and administrators were churchmen* Perhaps^ the
clear expression of the representative principle in connection with the royal
administration in England was when Hmry II. summoned the prior and
"five or more of the more discreet and wiser*7 monks from of twelve
vacant abbeys to meet with Mm for the of abbots, and
instructed these representatives to bring with them "letters of the