300 recorded. These documents clearly indicate that the witan was composed of the nation's highest echelon of both ecclesiastical and secular officers. Present on the ecclesiastical side were archbishops, bishops, and abbots, and occasionally also abbesses and priests; on the secular side ealdormen (or eorls in the latter centuries) and thegns. Members of the royal family were also present, and the king presided over the entire body. In his investigation into Anglo-Saxon institutions, H. M. Chadwick wrote: I have not thought it necessary to discuss at length the nature of the powers possessed by the council [i.e., the witenagemot], for… there can be little hope of arriving at any definite conclusions on this subject. Indeed it seems at least doubtful whether the functions of the council were ever properly defined. Similarly, in his study of the witenagemots, Felix Liebermann stated that "its functions and power differ… considerably at various times." Still, he was able to give a relatively detailed description of its constitution:From the time of Ine the Witan was composed of the aristocratic élite created by monarchy. The king, generally indeed advised by the existing nobility, conferred prelatures and ealdormanries, with both of which a seat in the national assembly [i.e., the witenagemot] was legally or practically connected. Members of the royal family, ladies not excepted, were present at many gemots. The king alone raised a man to the position of a gesith, a thane, a provincial or local reeve, a court officer or a royal chaplain, one of which titles seems to have been the indispensable qualification for a vote… as no periodicity of the assembly was fixed, the king determined when and where it was to meet, for the most part choosing places under his immediate control; he presided, spoke first, put his questions, proposed his bills of proposed laws, and finally dismissed the witan. The witan was noted by contemporary sources as having the singular power to ceosan to cyninge, 'to choose the king' from amongst the (extended) royal family. Nevertheless, at least until the 11th century, royal succession generally followed the "ordinary system of primogeniture." The historian Chadwick interpreted these facts as proof that the so-called election of the king by the witan merely amounted to formal recognition of the deceased king's natural successor. But Liebermann was generally less willing than Chadwick to see the witan's significance as buried under the weight of the royal