The Witan () was the king's council in Anglo-Saxon England from before the seventh century until the 11th century. It was composed of the leading magnates, both ecclesiastic and secular, and meetings of the council were sometimes called the Witenagemot. Its primary function was to advise the king on subjects such as promulgation of laws, judicial judgments, approval of charters transferring land, settlement of disputes, election of archbishops and bishops and other matters of major national importance. The witan also had to elect and approve the appointment of a new king. Its membership was composed of the most important noblemen, including ealdormen, thegns, and senior clergy. Terminology The terms and are increasingly avoided by modern historians, although few would go as far as Geoffrey Hindley, who described as an "essentially Victorian" coinage. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England prefers 'King's Council', but adds that it was known in Old English as the . John Maddicott regarded the word with suspicion, even though it is used in sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: For these reasons, in his study of the origins of the English parliament, he generally preferred the more neutral word 'assembly'. He described as a rare 11th century usage, with only nine pre-Conquest examples, mainly in the crisis of 1051–52. Patrick Wormald was also sceptical, describing as "a word always rare and unattested before 1035". Henrietta Leyser commented in 2017 that for decades historians avoided using the word for assemblies in case they were interpreted as proto-parliaments, and she went on: "Recent historiography, however, has reintroduced the term since it is clear that it was generally accepted that certain kinds of business could only be transacted with a substantial number of the king's wise men, in other words, in the company of his '. She does not mention the term . A contemporary account of a dispute over an estate in Middlesex in the 950s refers to a decision of the Myrcna witan (Mercian witan). Origin It is generally accepted that the English witenagemot had its origins in ancient Germanic assemblies summoned to witness royal grants of land. Yet whatever their status in the fourth and fifth centuries, the nature of these assemblies in England was irrevocably changed when Christianity was introduced, circa A.D. 600. Hereafter, church and state were "inseparably intertwined," and this was reflected in the strong ecclesiastical element in the witan's membership and concerns; records