Our monarchical faction maintain that these "wites," or "sapientes," were the judges, or men learned in the law: the popular faction assert them to be representatives of the boroughs, or what we now call the commons.
The expressions employed by all ancient historians in mentioning the wittenagemot, seem to contradict the latter supposition.

The members are almost always called the "principes, satrapae, optimates, magnates, proceres;" terms which seem to suppose an aristocracy, and to exclude the commons.

The boroughs also, from the low state of commerce, were so small and so poor, and the inhabitants lived in such dependence on the great men,[****] that it seems nowise probable they would be admitted as a part of the national councils.

The commons are well known to have had no share in the governments established by the Franks, Burgundians, and other northern nations; and we may conclude that the Saxons, who remained longer barbarous and uncivilized than those tribes, would never think of conferring such an extraordinary privilege on trade and industry.
[* Sometimes abbesses were admitted; at least they often sign the king's charters or grants.Spelm.Gloss.

in verbo Parliamentum.] [** Wilkins, passim.] [*** See note G, at the end of the volume.] [**** Brady's Treatise of English Boroughs, p.