The exact nature of the witenagemot, however, remains "essentially vague, fluctuating and incoherent." There is, however, much direct evidence of the various activities of the witan. Knowledge about who iraq email list formed the witan and who was present at its meetings is provided mainly by witness lists of charters, or grants of land, that were made up at the witenagemots. References to the witan's minutes or to official decisions are also preserved in law codes.
The first recorded act of a witenagemot was the law code issued by King Æthelbert of Kent ca. 600 AD, the earliest surviving document in sustained Old English prose; however, the witan was certainly in existence long before this time. In total, nearly 2,000 statutes and 40 law codes survive which attest to the workings of the various meetings of the witan, of which there are around 300 recorded.
These documents clearly indicate that the witan was composed of the highest echelon of the nation, both ecclesiastical and secular officials. On the ecclesiastical side there were present archbishops, bishops and abbots, and occasionally also abbesses and priests; on the secular side, ealdormen (or eorls in later centuries) and tegns. Members of the royal family were also present, and the king presided over the whole body.
In his research on Anglo-Saxon institutions, H.M. Chadwick wrote:
