The free man, the very base of the older English constitution, died down more and more into the "villein," the man who did suit and service to a master, who followed him to the field, who looked to his court for justice, who rendered days of service in his demesne.

The same tendencies drew the lesser thegns around the greater nobles, and these around the provincial ealdormen.

The ealdormen had hardly been dwarfed into lieutenants of the national sovereign before they again began to rise into petty kings, and in the century which follows we see Mercian or Northumbrian thegns following a Mercian or Northumbrian ealdorman to the field though it were against the lord of the land.

Even the constitutional forms which sprang from the old English freedom tended to invest the higher nobles with a commanding power.

In the "great meeting" of the Witenagemot or Assembly of the Wise lay the rule of the realm.