Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
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Title: Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
Author: S. A. Reilly
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR LEGAL HERITAGE: KING AETHELBERT - KING GEORGE III, 600 A.D. - 1776 ***
Copyright (C) 2004, 2012 by S. A. Reilly
OUR LEGAL HERITAGE
King AEthelbert - King George III, 1776, 600 A.D. - 1776
By
S. A. Reilly, Attorney
175 E. Delaware Place
Chicago, Illinois 60611-7715
S-Reilly@att.net
Copyright (C) 2004, 2012
Preface
This book was written for people with an interest in English
legal history who don't know where to start reading, as I didn't. Its
purpose is also to look at history through its laws, which do not lend
themselves to interpretation, and thus points of view, as does
conventional history; one cannot argue with the black letter of the
law. Attorneys will be interested in reading about the historical
context in which the legal doctrines they learned in law school
developed. This book includes the complete law codes of King Alfred and
of King Aethelbert, the law code of King Canute, paraphrased, excerpts
from the law code of Henry I, the entire Magna Carta, and the statutes
of England relevant to English life, but excluding such topics as
Scottish affairs and wars with Ireland. It also includes the inception
of the common law system, which was praised because it made law which
was not handed down by an absolutist king; the origin of the jury
system; the meaning of the Magna Carta provisions in their historical
context; and the emergence of attorneys.
This book is a primer. One may read it without prior knowledge
of history or law, although it will be more meaningful to attorneys
than to others. It can serve as an introduction on which to base
further reading in English legal history. It defines terms unique to
English legal history. However, the meaning of some terms in King
Aethelbert's code in Chapter 1 are unknown or inexact.
In the Table of Contents, the title of each chapter denotes an
important legal development in the given time period for that chapter.
Each chapter is divided into three sections: The Times, The Law, and
Judicial Procedure.
The Times section sets a background and context in which to
better understand the law of that period. The usual subject matter of
history such as battles, wars, royal intrigues, periods of corruption,
and international relations are omitted as not helping to understand
the process of civilization and development of the law. Standard
practices are described, but there are often variations with locality.
Also, change did not come abruptly, but with vacillations, e.g. the
change from pagan to Christian belief and the change to allowance of
loans for interest. The scientific revolution was accepted only slowly.
There were often many attempts made for change before it actually
occurred, e.g. gaining Parliamentary power over the king's privileges,
such as taxation.
The Law section describes the law governing the behavior and
conduct of the populace. It includes law of that time which is the
same, similar, or a building block to the law of today. In earlier
times this is both statutory law and the common law of the courts. The
Magna Carta, which is quoted in Chapter 7, is the first statute of
England and is listed first in the "Statutes of the Realm" and the
"Statutes at Large". The law sections of Chapters 7 - 18 mainly quote
or paraphrase almost all of these statutes. Excluded are statutes which
do not help us understand the development of our law, such as statutes
governing Wales after its conquest and statutes on succession rights to
the throne.
The Judicial Procedure section describes the process of
applying the law and trying cases, and jurisdictions. It also contains
some examples of cases.
Money is expressed in pounds, shillings, pence, scaetts, or
marks, which is a Danish denomination. There are twenty shillings in a
pound. A mark in silver is two-thirds of a pound. Shillings are
abbreviated: "s." The pre-Norman English shilling was divided into 4
pence or pennies. In Henry I's time, the shilling was divided into 5
pence. The Norman shilling was introduced by Henry II and was divided
into 12 pennies. This penny was literally one pennyweight of silver, so
a pound sterling thus weighed 240 pennyweights. Pence are abbreviated
"d.", for the Roman denarius. For example, six shillings and two pence
is denoted 6s.2d. A scaett was a coin of silver and copper of lesser
denomination; there were 20 scaetts to one shilling. There were no
coins of the denomination of shilling during pre-Norman times.
Dedication and Acknowledgements
A Vassar College faculty member once dedicated her book to her
students, but for whom it would have been written much earlier. This
book "Our Legal Heritage" is dedicated to the faculty of Vassar
College, without whom it would never have been written. Much
appreciation goes to Professor James Curtin of Loyola Law School for
his review and comments on this book's medieval period: Chapters 4-10,
and especially his comment that "I learned quite a bit about life in
those days from your work." Thanks go to Loyola University Law School
Professor George Anastaplo for introducing me to Professor Curtin. Much
appreciation goes to Professor Lacey Baldwin Smith of Northwestern
University's History Department for his review and comments on this
book's Tudor and Stuart periods: Chapters 11-17, especially his comment
that he learned a lot. Thanks go to Northwestern University Law School
Professor Steven Presser for introducing me to Professor Smith.
Finally, many thanks go to fellow Mensan William Wedgeworth for
proof-reading the entire book.
Table of Contents
Chapters:
1. Tort law as the first written law: to 600
2. Oaths and perjury: 600-900
3. Marriage law: 900-1066
4. Martial "law": 1066-1100
5. Criminal law and prosecution: 1100-1154
6. Common Law for all freemen: 1154-1215
7. Magna Carta: the first statute: 1215-1272
8. Land law: 1272-1348
9. Legislating the economy: 1348-1399
10. Equity from Chancery Court: 1399-1485
11. Use-trust of land: 1485-1509
12. Wills and testaments of lands and goods: 1509-1558
13. Consideration and contract Law: 1558-1601
14. Welfare for the poor: 1601-1625
15. Independence of the courts: 1625-1642
16. Freedom of religion: 1642-1660
17. Habeas Corpus: 1660-1702
18. Service of Process instead of arrest: 1702-1776
Appendix: Sovereigns of England
Bibliography
Chapter 1
The Times: before 600 A.D.
The settlement of England goes back thousands of years. At
first, people hunted and gathered their food. They wore animal skins
over their bodies for warmth and around their feet for protection when
walking. These skins were sewn together with bone needles and threads
made from animal sinews. They carried small items by hooking them onto
their belts. They used bone and stone tools, e.g. for preparing skins.
Their uncombed hair was held by thistlethorns, animal spines, or
straight bone hair pins. They wore conical hats of bound rush and lived
in rush shelters.
Early clans, headed by kings, lived in huts on top of hills or
other high places and fortified by circular or contour earth ditches
and banks behind which they could gather for protection. They were
probably dug with antler picks and wood spades. The people lived in
rectangular huts with four wood posts supporting a roof. The walls were
made of saplings, and a mixture of mud and straw. Cooking was in a clay
oven inside or over an open fire on the outside. Water was carried in
animal skins or leather pouches from springs lower on the hill up to
the settlement. Forests abounded with wolves, bears, deer, wild boars,
and wild cattle. They could more easily be seen from the hill tops.
Pathways extended through this camp of huts and for many miles beyond.
For wives, men married women of their clan or bought or
captured other women, perhaps with the help of a best man. They carried
their unwilling wives over the thresholds of their huts, which were
sometimes in places kept secret from her family. The first month of
marriage was called the honeymoon because the couple was given mead, a
drink with fermented honey and herbs, for the first month of their
marriage. A wife wore a gold wedding band on the ring finger of her
left hand to show that she was married.
Women usually stayed at home caring for children, preparing
meals, and making baskets. They also made wool felt and spun and wove
wool into a coarse cloth. Flax was grown and woven into a coarse linen
cloth. Spinning the strands into one continuous thread was done on a
stick, which the woman could carry about and spin at anytime when her
hands were free. The weaving was done on an upright or warp-weighted
loom. People of means draped the cloth around their bodies and fastened
it with a metal brooch inlayed with gold, gems, and shell, which were
glued on with glue that was obtained from melting animal hooves. People
drank from hollowed- out animal horns, which they could carry from
belts. They could tie things with rawhide strips or rope braids they
made. Kings drank from animal horns decorated with gold or from cups of
amber, shale, or pure gold. Men and women wore pendants and necklaces
of colorful stones, shells, amber beads, bones, and deer teeth. They
skinned and cut animals with hand-axes and knives made of flint dug up
from pits and formed by hitting flakes off. The speared fish with
barbed bone prongs or wrapped bait around a flint, bone, or shell fish
hook. On the coast, they made bone harpoons for deep-sea fish. The
flint ax was used to shape wood and bone and was just strong enough to
fell a tree, although the process was very slow.
The king, who was tall and strong, led his men in hunting
groups to kill deer and other wild animals in the forests and to fish
in the streams. Some men brought their hunting dogs on leashes to
follow scent trails to the animal. The men threw stones and spears with
flint points at the animals. They used wood clubs to beat them, at the
same time using wood shields to protect their bodies. They watched the
phases of the moon and learned to predict when it would be full and
give the most light for night hunting. This began the concept of a
month. Circles of stone like Stonehenge were built with alignments to
paths of the moon.
If hunting groups from two clans tried to follow the same deer,
there might be a fight between the clans or a blood feud. After the
battle, the clan would bring back its dead and wounded. A priest
officiated over a funeral for a dead man. His wife would often also go
on the funeral pyre with him.
The priest also officiated over sacrifices of humans, who were
usually offenders found guilty of transgressions. Sacrifices were
usually made in time of war or pestilence, and usually before the
winter made food scarce.
The clan ate deer that had been cooked on a spit over a fire,
and fruits and vegetables which had been gathered by the women. They
drank water from springs. In the spring, food was plentiful. There were
eggs of different colors in nests and many hare to eat. The goddess
Easter was celebrated at this time.
Later, there was farming and domestication of animals such as
horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chicken, and cattle. Of these, the pig was
the most important meat supply, being killed and salted for winter use.
Next in importance were the cattle. Sheep were kept primarily for their
wool. Flocks and herds were taken to pastures. The male cattle, with
wood yokes, pulled ploughs in the fields of barley and wheat. The
female goat and cow provided milk, butter, and cheese. The chickens
provided eggs. The hoe, spade, and grinding stone were used. Thread was
spun with a hand-held spindle which one hand held while the other hand
alternately formed the thread from a mass and then wound it around the
spindle. A coarse cloth was woven and worn as a tunic which had been
cut from the cloth. Kings wore tunics decorated with sheet gold.
Decorated pottery was made from clay and used to hold liquids and for
food preparation and consumption. During the period of "lent" [from the
word "lencten", which means spring], it was forbidden to eat any meat
or fish. This was the season in which many animals were born and grew
to maturity. Wood carts with four wheels were used to transport produce
and manure. Horses were used for transportation of people or goods.
Wood dug-out boats and paddles were used to fish on rivers or on the
seacoast.
Clans had settlements near rivers. Each settlement had a
meadow, for the mowing of hay, and a simple mill, with round timber
huts, covered with branches or thatch or turf supported by a ring of
posts. Inside was a hearth with smoke going up through a hole in the
roof, and a cauldron for cooking food. There was an upright loom in the
darkness. The floor was swept clean. At the door were spears or bags of
slingstones ready for immediate use. The King lived in the largest hut.
Gullies outside carried off excess water. Each hut had a garden for
fruit and vegetables. A goat or cow might be tied out of reach of the
garden. There was a fence or hedge surrounding and protecting the
garden area and dwelling. Buckets and cauldrons which had originated
from the Mediterranean were used. Querns with the top circular stone
turned by hand over the bottom stone were used for grinding grain.
There were ovens to dry and roast grain. Grain was first eaten as a
porridge or cereal. There were square wood granaries on stilts and wood
racks on which to dry hay. Grain was stored in concealed pits in the
earth which were lined with drystone or basket work or clay and made
airtight by sealing with clay or dung. Old pits were converted into
waste dumps, burials, or latrines. Outside the fence were an acre or
two of fields of wheat and barley, and sometimes oats and rye. Wheat
and rye were sown in the fall, and oats and barley in the spring.
Sowing was by men or two oxen drawing a simple scratch plough. The
crops were all harvested in the summer. In this two-field system, land
was held by peasants in units designed to support a single extended
family. These fields were usually enclosed with a hedge to keep animals
from eating the crop and to define the territory of the settlement from
that of its neighbors. Flax was grown and made into linen cloth. Beyond
the fields were pastures for cattle and sheep grazing. There was often
an area for beehives. This was subsistence level farming.
Pottery was given symmetry when formed with use of a wheel and
heated in increasingly hot kilns. From kilns used for pottery, it was
noticed that lumps of gold or copper ore within would melt and assume
the shape of what they had been resting on. These were the first
metals, and could be beaten into various shapes, such as ornaments.
Then the liquid ore was poured into moulds carved out of stones to make
axes [small pointed tool for piercing holes in leather, wood, or other
soft materials] and daggers, which were reheated and hammered to become
strong. Copper-tipped drills, chisels, punches and awls were also made.
The bodies of deceased were buried far away from any village in
wood coffins, except for kings, who were placed in large stone coffins
after being wrapped in linen. Buried with them were a few personal
items, such as copper daggers, flat copper axes, and awls. The deceased
was buried in a coffin with a stone on top deep in the earth to keep
the spirit of the dead from coming out to haunt the living.
It was learned that tin added to the copper made a stronger
metal: bronze. Stone hammers, and bronze and iron tools, were used to
make cooking pots, weapons, breast plates, and horse bits, which were
formed from moulds and/or forged by bronze smiths and blacksmiths from
iron extracted from iron ore heated in bowl- shaped hearths. Typically
one man operated the bellows to keep the fire hot while another did the
hammering. Bronze was made into sickles for harvesting, razors for
shaving, tweezers, straight hair pins, safety pins for clothes,
armlets, neck-rings, and mirrors. Weapons included bows and arrows,
flint and copper daggers, bronze swords and spears, stone axes, and
shields of wood with bronze mountings. The bows and arrows probably
evolved from spear throwing rods. Kings in body armor fought with
chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses had bronze fittings.
The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims. When bronze came
into use, there was a demand for its constituent parts: copper and tin,
which were traded by rafts on waterways and the sea. When iron came
into use, there were wrought iron axes, saws, adzes [ax with curved
blade used to dress wood], files, ploughshares, harrows [set of spikes
to break clods of earth on ploughed land and also to cover seed when
sewn], scythes, billhooks [thick knife with hooked point used to prune
shrubs], and spits for hearths. Lead was mined. There was some
glassmaking of beads. Wrought iron bars were used as currency.
Hillforts now had wooden palisades on top of their banks to
protect the enclosed farmsteads and villages from stock wandering off
or being taken by rustlers, and from attacks by wild animals or other
people. Later a rampart was added from which sentries could patrol.
These were supported by timber and/or stone structures. Timbers were
probably transported by carts or dragged by oxen. At the entrances were
several openings only one of which really allowed entry. The others
went between banks into dead ends and served as traps in which to kill
the enemy from above. Gates were of wood, some hung from hinges on
posts which could be locked. Later guard chambers were added, some with
space for hearths and beds. Sometimes further concentric circles of
banks and ditches, and perhaps a second rampart, were added around
these forts. They could reach to 14 acres. The ramparts are
sufficiently widely spaced to make sling-shotting out from them highly
effective, but to minimize the dangers from sling-shotting from
without. The additional banks and ditches could be used to create
cattle corridors or to protect against spear-thrown firebrands.
However, few forts had springs of water within them, indicating that
attacks on them were probably expected to be short. Attacks usually
began with warriors bristling with weapons and blowing war trumpets
shouting insults to the foe, while their kings dashed about in
chariots. Sometimes champions from each side fought in single combat.
They took the heads of those they killed to hang from their belts or
place on wood spikes at the gates. Prisoners, including women and
children, might become slaves. Kings sometimes lived in separate
palisades where they kept their horses and chariots.
Circles of big stones like Stonehenge were rebuilt so that the
sun's position with respect to the stones would indicate the day of
longest sunlight and the day of shortest sunlight. Between these days
there was an optimum time to harvest the crops before fall, when plants
dried up and leaves fell from the trees. The winter solstice, when the
days began to get longer was cause for celebration. In the next season,
there was an optimum time to plant seeds so they could spring up from
the ground as new growth. So farming gave rise to the concept of a
year. Certain changes of the year were celebrated, such as Easter,
named for the Goddess of the Dawn, which occurred in the east (after
lent); May Day celebrating the revival of life; Lammas around July,
when the wheat crop was ready for harvesting; and on October 31 the
Celtic eve of Samhain, when the spirits of the dead came back to visit
homes and demand food or else cast an evil spell on the refusing homes;
and at which masked and costumed inhabitants representing the souls of
the dead paraded to the outskirts of the settlements to lead the ghosts
away from their homes; and at which animals and humans, who might be
deemed to be possessed by spirits, were sacrificed or killed perhaps as
examples, in huge bonfires [bonefires] as those assembled looked out
for spirits and evil beings.
There was an agricultural revolution from the two-field system
in which one field was fallow to the three-field system, in which there
were three large fields for the heavy and fertile land. Each field was
divided into long and narrow strips. Each strip represented a day's
work with the plough. One field had wheat, or perhaps rye, another had
barley, oats, beans, or peas, and the third was fallow. It had been
observed that legumes such as peas and beans restored the soil. These
were rotated yearly. There was a newly invented plough that was heavy
and made of wood and later had an attached iron blade. The plough had a
mould-board which caught the soil stirred by the plough blade and threw
it into a ridge alongside the furrow dug by the plough blade. This
plough was too heavy for two oxen and was pulled by a team of about
eight to ten oxen. Each ox was owned by a different man as was the
plough, because no one peasant could afford the complete set. Each
freeman was allotted certain strips in each field to bear crops. His
strips were far from each other, which insured some very fertile and
some only fair soil, and some land near his village dwelling and some
far away. These strips he cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested
for himself and his family. After the harvest, they reverted to common
ownership for grazing by pigs, sheep, and geese. As soon as haymaking
was over, the meadows became common grazing land for horses, cows, and
oxen. Not just any inhabitant, but usually only those who owned a piece
of land in the parish were entitled to graze their animals on the
common land, and each owner had this right of pasture for a definite
number of animals. The faster horse replaced the ox as the primary work
animal. Other farm implements were: coulters, which gave free passage
to the plough by cutting weeds and turf, picks, spades and shovels,
reaping hooks and scythes, and sledge hammers and anvils. Strips of
land for agriculture were added from waste land as the community grew.
Waste lands were moors bristling with brushwood, or gorse, heather and
wanton weeds, reed-coated marshes, quaking peat-bogs, or woods grown
haphazard on sand or rock. With iron axes, forests could be cleared to
provide more arable land.
Some villages had a smith, a wheelwright, and a cooper. There
were villages which had one or two market days in each week. Cattle,
sheep, pigs, poultry, calves, and hare were sold there. London was a
town on the Thames River under the protection of the Celtic river god
Lud: Lud's town. It's huts were probably built over the water, as was
Celtic custom. It was a port for foreign trade. Near the town was
Ludhill. Each Celtic tribe in England made its own coinage. Silver and
bronze were first used, and then gold. The metal was put into a round
form and then placed between two engraved dies, which were hit.
Flint workers mined with deer antler picks and ox shoulder
blade shovels for flint to grind into axes, spearheads, and arrowheads.
Mine shafts were up to thirty feet deep and necessitated the use of
chalk lamps fueled by animal fat with wicks of moss. The flint was
hauled up in baskets.
Common men and women were now buried in tombs within memorial
burial mounds of earth with stone entrances and interior chambers. A
man's weapons and shield were buried with him and a woman's spindle and
weaving baton, and perhaps beads or pottery with her. At times, mounds
of earth would simply be covered over piles of corpses and ashes in
urns. In these mass graves, some corpses had spear holes or sword cuts,
indicating death by violence. The Druid priests, the learned class of
the Celts, taught the Celts to believe in reincarnation of the soul
after death of one body into another body. They also threw prized
possessions into lakes and rivers as sacrifices to water gods. They
placed images of gods and goddesses in shrines, which were sometimes
large enough to be temples. They thought of their gods as supernatural
magicians.
With the ability to grow food and the acquisition of land by
conquest by invading groups, the population grew. There were different
classes of men. The freemen were eorls [noble freemen] or ceorls
[ordinary free farmers]. Slaves were not free. Freemen had long hair
and beards. Slaves' hair was shorn from their heads so that they were
bald. Slaves were chained and often traded. Prisoners taken in battle,
especially native Britons taken by invading groups, became slaves. A
slave who was captured or purchased was a "theow". An "esne" was a
slave who worked for hire. A "weallas" was a Welsh slave. Criminals
became slaves of the person wronged or of the king. Sometimes a father
pressed by need sold his children or his wife into bondage. Debtors,
who increased in number during famine, which occurred regularly, became
slaves by giving up the freeman's sword and spear, picking up a slave's
mattock [pick ax for the soils], and placing their head within a lord's
or lady's hands. They were called wite- theows. The original meaning of
the word lord was "loaf-giver". Children with a slave parent were
slaves. The slaves lived in huts around the homes of big landholders,
which were made of logs and consisted on one large room or hall. An
open hearth was in the middle of the earthen floor of the hall, which
was strewn with rushes. There was a hole in the roof to let out the
smoke. Here the landholder and his men would eat meat, bread, salt, hot
spiced ale, and mead while listening to minstrels sing about the heroic
deeds of their ancestors. Richer men drank wine. There were festivals
which lasted several days, in which warriors feasted, drank, gambled,
boasted, and slept where they fell. Physical strength and endurance in
adversity were admired traits.
Slaves often were used as grain grinders, ploughmen, sowers,
haywards, woodwards, shepherds, goatherds, swineherds, oxherds,
cowherds, dairymaids, and barnmen. Slaves had no legal rights. A lord
could kill his slave at will. A wrong done to a slave was regarded as
done to his owner. If a person killed another man's slave, he had to
compensate him with the slave's purchase price. The slave owner had to
answer for the offenses of his slaves against others, as for the
mischief done by his cattle. Since a slave had no property, he could
not be fined for crimes, but was whipped, mutilated, or killed.
During famine, acorns, beans, peas, and even bark were ground
down to supplement flour when grain stocks grew low. People scoured the
hedgerows for herbs, roots, nettles, and wild grasses, which were
usually left for the pigs. Sometimes people were driven to infanticide
or group suicide by jumping together off a cliff or into the water.
Several large kingdoms came to replace the many small ones. The
people were worshipping pagan gods when St. Augustine came to England
in 596 A.D. to Christianize them. King AEthelbert of Kent and his wife,
who had been raised Christian on the continent, met him when he
arrived. The King gave him land where there were ruins of an old city.
Augustine used stones from the ruins to build a church which was later
called Canterbury. He also built the first St. Paul's church in London.
Aethelbert and his men who fought with him and ate and lived in his
household [gesiths] became Christian. A succession of princesses went
out from Kent to marry other Saxon kings and convert them to
Christianity.
Augustine knew how to write, but King AEthelbert did not. The
King announced his laws at meetings of his people and his eorls would
decide the punishments. There was a fine of 120s. for disregarding a
command of the King. He and Augustine decided to write down some of
these laws, which now included the King's new law concerning the church.
These laws concern personal injury, killing, theft, burglary,
marriage, adultery, and inheritance. The blood feud's private revenge
for killing had been replaced by payment of compensation to the dead
man's kindred. One, or one's blood kindred, paid a man's "wergeld"
[worth] to his blood kindred for causing his wrongful death. The
wergeld [wer] of a king was an unpayable amount of about 7000s., of an
aetheling [a king-worthy man of the extended royal family] was 1500s.,
of an eorl, 300s., of a ceorl, 100s., of a laet [agricultural worker in
Kent, which class was between free and slave], 40-80s., and of a slave
nothing. At this time a shilling could buy a cow in Kent or a sheep
elsewhere. If a ceorl killed an eorl, he paid three times as much as an
eorl would have paid as murderer. Personal injury was compensated by a
"bot". The penalty for slander was tearing out of the tongue. If an
aetheling was guilty of this offense, his tongue was worth five times
that of a coerl, so he had to pay proportionately more to ransom it.
The crimes of murder, treachery to one's own lord, arson [burning a
house], house breaking, and open theft, were punishable by death and
forfeiture of all property.
The Law
"THESE ARE THE DOOMS [DECREES] WHICH KING AETHELBERHT
ESTABLISHED IN THE DAYS OF AUGUSTINE
1. [Theft of] the property of God and of the church [shall be
compensated], twelve fold; a bishop's property, eleven fold; a priest's
property, nine fold; a deacon's property, six fold; a cleric's
property, three fold; church frith [breach of the peace of the church;
right of sanctuary and protection given to those within its precincts],
two fold [that of ordinary breach of the public peace]; maethl-frith
[breach of the peace of a meeting place], two fold.
2. If the King calls his leod [his people] to him, and any one there
do them evil, [let him compensate with] a twofold bot [damages for the
injury], and 50 shillings fine to the King.
3. If the King drink at any one's home, and any one there do any lyswe
[evil deed], let him make twofold bot.
4. If a freeman steal from the King, let him repay nine fold.
5. If a man slay another in the King's tun [enclosed dwelling
premises], let him make bot with 50 shillings.
6. If any one slay a freeman, 50 shillings to the King, as drihtin beah
[payment to a lord in compensation for killing his freeman].
7. If the King's ambiht-smith [smith or carpenter] or laad-rine [man
who walks before the King or guide or escort], slay a man, let him pay
a half wergeld.
8. [Offenses against anyone or any place under] the King's mund byrd
[protection or patronage], 50 shillings fine
9. If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and
let the King have the wite [fine] and all the chattels [necessary to
pay the fine]. (Chattels was a variant of "cattle" and was usually a
beast, though it could mean any personal property.)
10. If a man lie with the one of the King's female servants, let him
pay a bot of 50 shillings.
11. If she be a corn-grinding slave, let him pay a bot of 25 shillings.
The third [class of servant] 12 shillings.
12. Let the King's fedesl [tenant or boarder] be paid for with 20
shillings.
13. If a man slay another in an eorl's tun [premises], let [him] make
bot with 12 shillings.
14. If a man lie with an eorl's birele [female cupbearer], let him make
bot with 20 shillings.
15. [Offenses against a person or place under] a ceorl's mund byrd
[protection], 6 shillings.
16. If a man lie with a ceorl's birele [female cupbearer], let him make
bot with 6 shillings; with a slave of the second [class], 50 scaetts;
with one of the third, 30 scaetts.
17. If any one be the first to invade a man's tun [premises], let him
make bot with 6 shillings; let him who follows, with 3 shillings;
after, each, a shilling.
18. If a man furnish weapons to another where there is a quarrel,
though no injury results, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
19. If a weg-reaf [highway robbery] be done [with weapons furnished by
another], let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 6
shillings.
20. If the man be slain, let him [the man who provided the weapons]
make bot with 20 shillings.
21. If a [free] man slay another, let him make bot with a half wergeld
of 100 shillings.
22. If a man slay another, at the open grave let him pay 20 shillings,
and pay the whole wergeld within 40 days.
23. If the slayer departs from the land, let his kindred pay a half
leod.
24. If any one bind a freeman, let him make bot with 20 shillings.
25. If any one slay a ceorl's half-aeta [loaf or bread eater; domestic
or menial servant], let him make bot with 6 shillings.
26. If [anyone] slay a laet [semi-slave] of the highest class, let him
pay 80 shillings; of the second class, let him pay 60 shillings; of the
third class, let him pay 40 shillings.
27. If a freeman commit edor-breach [breaking through the fenced
enclosure and forcibly entering a ceorl's dwelling], let him make bot
with 6 shillings.
28. If any one take property from a dwelling, let him pay a three-fold
bot.
29. If a freeman goes with hostile intent through an edor [the fence
enclosing a dwelling], let him make bot with 4 shillings.
30. If [in so doing] a man slay another, let him pay with his own
money, and with any sound property whatever.
31. If a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his
wergeld, and obtain another wife with his own money, and bring her to
the other [man's dwelling].
32. If any one thrusts through the riht-ham-scyld [legal means of
protecting one's home; the perimeter of a homestead], let him
adequately compensate.
33. If there be feax-fang [seizing someone by the hair], let there be
50 sceatts for bot.
34. If there be an exposure of the bone, let bot be made with 3
shillings.
35. If there be a cutting of the bone, let bot be made with 4 shillings.
36. If the outer hion [outer membrane covering the brain] be broken,
let bot be made with 10 shillings.
37. If it be both [outer and inner membranes covering the brain], let
bot be made with 20 shillings.
38. If a shoulder be lamed, let bot be made with 30 shillings.
39. If an ear be struck off, let bot be made with 12 shillings.
40. If the other ear hear not, let bot be made with 25 shillings.
41. If an ear be pierced, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
42. If an ear be mutilated, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
43. If an eye be [struck] out, let bot be made with 50 shillings.
44. If the mouth or an eye be injured, let bot be made with 12
shillings.
45. If the nose be pierced, let bot be made with 9 shillings.
46. If it be one ala, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
47. If both be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
48. If the nose be otherwise mutilated, for each [cut, let] bot be made
with 6 shillings.
49. If it be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
50. Let him who breaks the jaw bone pay for it with 20 shillings.
51. For each of the four front teeth, 6 shillings; for the tooth which
stands next to them 4 shillings; for that which stands next to that, 3
shillings; and then afterwards, for each a shilling.
52. If the speech be injured, 12 shillings. If the collar bone be
broken, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
53. Let him who stabs [another] through an arm, make bot with 6
shillings. If an arm be broken, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
54. If a thumb be struck off, 20 shillings. If a thumb nail be off, let
bot be made with 3 shillings. If the shooting [fore] finger be struck
off, let bot be made with 8 shillings. If the middle finger be struck
off, let bot be made with 4 shillings. If the gold [ring] finger be
struck off, let bot be made with 6 shillings. If the little finger be
struck off, let bot be made with 11 shillings.
55. For every nail, a shilling.
56. For the smallest disfigurement of the face, 3 shillings; and for
the greater, 6 shillings.
57. If any one strike another with his fist on the nose, 3 shillings.
58. If there be a bruise [on the nose], a shilling; if he receive a
right hand bruise [from protecting his face with his arm], let him [the
striker] pay a shilling.
59. If the bruise [on the arm] be black in a part not covered by the
clothes, let bot be made with 30 scaetts.
60. If it be covered under the clothes, let bot for each be made with
20 scaetts.
61. If the belly be wounded, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if it
be pierced through, let bot be made with 20 shillings.
62. If any one needs medical attention, let bot be made with 30
shillings.
63. If any one be cearwund [badly wounded], let bot be made with 3
shillings.
64. If any one destroy [another's] organ of generation [penis], let him
pay him with 3 wergelds: if he pierce it through, let him make bot with
6 shillings; if it be pierced within, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
65. If a thigh be broken, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if the man
become halt [lame], then friends must arbitrate.
66. If a rib be broken, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
67. If [the skin of] a thigh be pierced through, for each stab 6
shillings; if [the wound be] above an inch [deep], a shilling; for two
inches, 2; above three, 3 shillings.
68. If a sinew be wounded, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
69. If a foot be cut off, let 50 shillings be paid.
70. If a great toe be cut off, let 10 shillings be paid.
71. For each of the other toes, let one half that for the corresponding
finger be paid.
72. If the nail of a great toe be cut off, 30 scaetts for bot; for each
of the others, make bot with 10 scaetts.
73. If a freewoman loc-bore [with long hair] commit any leswe [evil
deed], let her make a bot of 30 shillings.
74. Let maiden bot [compensation for injury to an unmarried woman] be
as that of a freeman.
75. For [breach of] the mund [protection] of a widow of the best class,
of an eorl's degree, let the bot be 50 shillings; of the second, 20
shillings; of the third, 12 shillings; of the fourth, 6 shillings.
76. If a man carry off a widow not under his own protection by right,
let the mund be twofold.
77. If a man buy a maiden as wife, let the bargain stand, if it be
without fraud; but if there be fraud, let him bring her home again, and
let his property be restored to him.
78. If she bear a live child, she shall have half the property, if the
husband die first.
79. If she wish to go away with her children, she shall have half the
property.
80. If the husband wish to keep them [the children], [she shall have
the same portion] as one child.
81. If she bear no child, her paternal kindred shall have the fioh [her
money and chattels] and the morgen-gyfe [morning gift: a gift made to
the bride by her husband on the morning following the consummation of
the marriage].
82. If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay 50 shillings to
her controller, and afterwards buy the consent of the controller [to
the marriage].
83. If she be betrothed to another man and money has changed hands, let
him [who carried her off] make bot [to the intended bridegroom] with 20
shillings.
84. If restitution [of the girl] is made, bot of 35 shillings; and 15
shillings to the King.
85. If a man lie with an esne's [slave's]wife, her husband still
living, let him make twofold bot.
86. If one esne [slave] slay another unoffending, let him pay for him
at his full worth.
87. If an esne's [slave's] eye and foot be struck out or off, let him
be paid for at his full worth.
88. If any one bind another man's esne [slave], let him make bot with 6
shillings.
89. Let [compensation for] weg-reaf [highway robbery] of a theow
[slave] be 3 shillings.
90. If a theow steal, let him [the owner] make twofold bot [twice the
value of the stolen goods]."
Judicial Procedure
The King and his freemen would hear and decide cases of
wrongful behavior such as breach of the peace. Punishment would be
given to the offender by the community. The bots, wers, and wites were
high and often could not be paid. If a man could not or would not pay,
he could be outlawed, to be killed by anyone with impunity or punished
by hanging; beheading; burning; drowning; stoning; precipitation from a
cliff; loss of ears, nose, upper-lip, hands and feet; castration;
flogging; or sale into slavery.
There were occasional meetings of "hundreds", which were 100
households, to settle widespread disputes. The chief officer was
"hundreder" or "constable". He was responsible for keeping the peace of
the hundred.
The concept of a wrong to a person or his kindred is still
primary and that of offense to the community secondary. Very slowly did
the concept emerge that that members of the community must be content
with legal remedies and must not seek private vengeance and that public
offenses cannot be altered by private agreement.
The Druid priests decided all disputes of the Celts.
Chapter 2
The Times: 600-900
The country was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons. The French called it
"Angleterre", which means the angle or end of the earth. It was called
"Angle land", which later became "England".
A community was usually an extended family. Its members lived a
village in which a stone church was the most prominent building. They
lived in one-room huts with walls and roofs made of wood, mud, and
straw. Hangings covered the cracks in the walls to keep the wind out.
Smoke from a fire in the middle of the room filtered out of cracks in
the roof. Grain was ground at home by rotating by hand one stone disk
on another stone disk. Some villages had a mill powered by the flow of
water or by horses. All freeholders had the duty of watch [at night]
and ward [during the day], of following the hue and cry to chase an
offender, and of taking the oath of peace. These three duties were
constant until 1195.
Farmland surrounded the villages and was farmed by the
community as a whole under the direction of a lord. There was silver,
copper, iron, tin, gold, and various types of stones from remote lead
mines and quarries in the nation. Silver pennies replaced the smaller
scaetts. Freemen paid "scot" and bore "lot" according to their means
for local purposes.
Offa, the strongest of the Saxon kings, minted high-quality
silver pennies. He traded woolen coats for lava grindstones with
Emperor Charlemagne, who used a silver denarius coin. There were 12
denarii to the solidus and 20 soldi to the pound of silver. These
denominations were taken by England as 12 pennies to the shilling and
20 shillings to the pound. The pound sign, an "L" with a hash mark
derived from the word Libra, which meant weighing scales.
Everyone in the village went to church on Sunday and brought
gifts such as grain to the priest. Later, contributions in the form of
money became customary, and then expected. These "tithes" were spent
for church repair, the clergy, and poor and needy laborers. The church
fixed the amount to be one-tenth, but local custom determined the
amount. There was also church-scot: a payment to the clergy in lieu of
the first fruits of the land. There were also offerings, originally
voluntary but afterwards compulsory, for sacraments. The priest was the
chaplain of a landlord and his parish was coextensive with that
landlord's holding and could include one to several villages. The
priest and other men who helped him, lived in the church building. Some
churches had lead roofs and iron hinges, latches, and locks on their
doors. The land underneath had been given to the church by former kings
and persons who wanted the church to say prayers to help their souls go
from purgatory to heaven and who also selected the first priest. The
priest conducted Christianized Easter ceremonies in the spring and
(Christ's mass) ceremonies in winter in place of the pagan Yuletide
festivities. Burning incense took the place of pagan burnt animal
offerings, which were accompanied by incense to disguise the odor of
burning flesh. Holy water replaced haunted wells and streams. Christian
incantations replaced sorcerer's spells. Nuns assisted priests in
celebrating mass and administering the sacraments. They alone
consecrated new nuns. Vestry meetings were community meetings held for
church purposes. The people said their prayers in English, and the
priest conducted the services in English. A person joined his hands in
prayer as if to offer them for binding together in submission.
The church baptized babies and officiated or gave blessings at
marriage ceremonies. It also said prayers for the dying, gave them
funerals, and buried them. There were burial service fees, candle dues,
and plough alms. A piece of stone with the dead person's name marked
his grave. It was thought that putting the name on the grave would
assist identification of that person for being taken to heaven. The
church heard the last wish or will of the person dying concerning who
he wanted to have his property. The church taught that it was not
necessary to bury possessions with the deceased. The church taught boys
and girls.
Every man carried a horn slung on his shoulder as he went about
his work so that he could at once send out a warning to his fellow
villagers or call them in chasing a thief or other offender. The
forests were full of outlaws, so strangers who did not blow a horn to
announce themselves were presumed to be fugitive offenders who could be
shot on sight with impunity. An eorl could call upon the ceorl farmers
for about forty days to fight off an invading group.
There were several kingdoms, whose boundaries kept changing due
to warfare, which was a sin according to the church. They were each
governed by a king and witan of wise men who met at a witanegemot,
which was usually held three times a year, mostly on great church
festivals and at the end of the harvest. The king and witan chose the
witan's members of bishops, eorldormen, and thegns [landholding
farmers]. The king and hereditary claims played a major part in the
selection of the eorldormen, who were the highest military leaders and
often of the royal family. They were also chief magistrates of large
jurisdictional areas of land. The witan included officers of the king's
household and perhaps other of his retinue. There was little
distinction then between his gesith, fighting men, guards, household
companions, dependents, and servants. The king was sometimes
accompanied by his wife and sons at the witanagemot. A king was
selected by the witan according to his worthiness, usually from among
the royal family, and could be deposed by it. The witan and king
decided on laws, taxes, and transfers of land. They made determinations
of war and peace and directed the army and the fleet. The king wore a
crown or royal helmet. He extended certain protections by the king's
peace. He could erect castles and bridges and could provide a special
protection to strangers.
A king had not only a wergeld to be paid to his family if he
were killed, but a "cynebot" of equal amount that would be paid to his
kingdom's people. A king's household had a chamberlain for the royal
bedchamber, a marshall to oversee the horses and military equipment, a
steward as head of household, and a cupbearer. The king had income from
fines for breach of his peace; fines and forfeitures from courts
dealing with criminal and civil cases; salvage from ship wrecks;
treasure trove [assets hidden or buried in times of war]; treasures of
the earth such as gold and silver; mines; saltworks; tolls and other
dues of markets, ports, and the routes by land and by river generally;
heriot from heirs of his special dependents for possession of land
(usually in kind, principally in horses and weapons). He also had
rights of purveyance [hospitality and maintenance when traveling]. The
king had private lands, which he could dispose of by his will. He also
had crown lands, which belonged to his office and could not be
alienated without consent of the witan. Crown lands often included
palaces and their appendant farms, and burhs. It was a queen's duty to
run the royal estate. Also, a queen could possess, manage, and dispose
of lands in her name. Violent queens waged wars. Kingdoms were often
allied by marriage between their royal families. There were also royal
marriages to royalty on the continent.
The houses of the wealthy had ornamented silk hangings on the
walls. Some had fine white ox horn shaved so thin they were transparent
for windows. Brightly colored drapery, often purple, and fly nets
surrounded their beds, which were covered with the fur of animals. They
slept in bed clothes on pillows stuffed with straw. Tables plated with
silver and gems held silver candlesticks, gold and silver goblets and
cups, and lamps of gold, silver, or glass. They used silver mirrors and
silver writing pens. There were covered seats, benches, and footstools
with the head and feet of animals at their extremities. They ate from a
table covered with a cloth. Servants brought in food on spits, from
which they ate. Food was boiled, broiled, or baked. The wealthy ate
wheat bread and others ate barley bread. Ale made from barley was
passed around in a cup. Mead made from honey was also drunk.
Men wore long-sleeved wool and linen garments reaching almost
to the knee, around which they wore a belt tied in a knot. Men often
wore a gold ring on the fourth finger of the right hand. Leather shoes
were fastened with leather thongs around the ankle. Their hair was
parted in the middle and combed down each side in waving ringlets. The
beard was parted in the middle of the chin, so that it ended in two
points. The clergy did not wear beards. Great men wore gold-embroidered
clothes, gilt buckles and brooches, and drank from drinking horns
mounted in silver gilt or in gold. Well- to-do women wore brightly
colored robes with waist bands, headbands, necklaces, gem bracelets,
and rings. Their long hair was in ringlets and they put rouge on their
cheeks. They had beads, pins, needles, tweezers of bronze, and
workboxes of bronze, some highly ornamented. They were often doing
needlework. Silk was affordable only by the wealthy.
Most families kept a pig and pork was the primary meat. There
were also sheep, goats, cows, deer, hare, and fowl. Fowl was obtained
by fowlers who trapped them. The inland waters yielded eels, salmon,
and trout. In the fall, meat was salted to preserve it for winter
meals. There were orchards growing figs, nuts, grapes, almonds, pears,
and apples. Also produced were beans, lentils, onions, eggs, cheese,
and butter. Pepper and cinnamon were imported.
Fishing from the sea yielded herrings, sturgeon, porpoise,
oysters, crabs, and other fish. Sometimes a whale was driven into an
inlet by a group of boats. Whale skins were used to make ropes.
The roads were not much more than trails. They were often so
narrow that two pack horses could hardly pass each other. The pack
horses each carried two bales or two baskets slung over their backs,
which balanced each other. The soft soil was compacted into a deep
ditch which rains, floods, and tides, if near the sea, soon turned into
a river. Traveling a far distance was unsafe as there were robbers on
the roads. Traveling strangers were distrusted. It was usual to wash
one's feet in a hot tub after traveling and to dry them with a rough
wool cloth.
There were superstitions about the content of dreams, the
events of the moon, and the flights and voices of birds were often seen
as signs or omens of future events. Herbal mixtures were drunk for
sickness and maladies. From the witch hazel plant was made a mild
alcoholic astringent, which was probably used to clean cuts and sooth
abrasions.
In the peaceful latter part of the 600s, Theodore, who had been
a monk in Rome, was appointed archbishop and visited all the island
speaking about the right rule of life and ordaining bishops to oversee
the priests. Each kingdom was split up into dioceses each with one
bishop. Thereafter, bishops were selected by the king and his witan,
usually after consulting the clergy and even the people of the diocese.
The bishops came to be the most permanent element of society. They had
their sees in villages or rural monasteries. The bishops came to have
the same wergeld as an eorldorman: 1200s., which was the price of about
500 oxen. A priest had the wergeld as a landholding farmer [thegn], or
300s. The bishops spoke Latin, but the priests of the local parishes
spoke English. Theodore was the first archbishop whom all the English
church obeyed. He taught sacred and secular literature, the books of
holy writ, ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, and sacred
music. Theodore discouraged slavery by denying Christian burial to the
kidnapper and forbidding the sale of children over the age of seven. A
slave became entitled to two loaves a day and to his holydays. A slave
was allowed to buy his or his children's freedom. In 673, Theodore
started annual national ecclesiastical assemblies, for instance for the
witnessing of important actions. The bishops, some abbots, the king,
and the eorldormen were usually present. From them the people learned
the benefit of common national action. There were two archbishops: one
of Canterbury in the south and one of York in the north. They governed
the bishops and could meet with them to issue canons that would be
equally valid all over the land. A bishop's house contained some
clerks, priests, monks, and nun and was a retreat for the weary
missionary and a school for the young. The bishop had a deacon who
acted as a secretary and companion in travel, and sometimes as an
interpreter. Ink was made from the outer husks of walnuts steeped in
vinegar.
The learned ecclesiastical life flourished in monastic
communities, in which both monks and nuns lived. Hilda, a noble's
daughter, became the first nun in Northumbria and abbess of one of its
monasteries. There she taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and
charity. Several monks taught there later became bishops. Kings and
princes often asked her advice. Many abbesses came to run monastic
communities; they were from royal families. Women, especially from
royal families, fled to monasteries to obtain shelter from unwanted
marriage or to avoid their husbands. Kings and eorldormen retired to
them.
Danish Vikings made several invasions in the 800s, so the witan
imposed a danegeld tax on land that was assessed on everyone every ten
to twenty years for maintaining forces sufficient to clear the British
seas of Danish pirates or to buy off the ravages of the Danish It was
1s. and later 2s. upon every hide of land, where a hide was probably
the amount of land which could support a family or household for a year
or as much land as could be tilled annually by a single plough. It was
stored in a strong box under the King's bed. King Alfred the Great, who
had lived for awhile in Rome, unified the country to defeat the
invaders. He established fortifications called "burhs", usually on hill
tops or other strategic locations on the borders to control the main
road and river routes into his realm. The burhs were seminal towns.
They were typically walled enclosures with towers and an outer ditch
and mound, instead of the hedge or fence enclosure of a tun. Inside
were several wooden thatched huts and a couple of churches, which were
lit by earthen oil lamps. The populace met at burhgemotes. The land
area protected by each burh became known as a "shire", which means a
share of a larger whole. The shire or local landowners were responsible
for repairing the burh fortifications. There were about thirty shires.
Alfred gathered together fighting men who were at his disposal,
which included eorldormen with their hearthbands (retinues of men each
of whom had chosen to swear to fight to the death for their eorldorman,
and some of whom were of high rank), the King's thegns, shire thegns
(local landholding farmers, who were required to bring fighting
equipment such as swords, helmets, chain mail, and horses), and
ordinary freemen, i.e. ceorls (who carried food, dug fortifications,
and sometimes fought). Since the King was compelled to call out the
whole population to arms, the distinction between the king's thegns
from other landholders disappeared. Some great lords organized men
under them, whom they provisioned. These vassals took a personal oath
to their lord "on condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve,
and fulfill all that was agreed on when I became his man, and chose his
will as mine." Alfred had a small navy of longships with 60 oars to
fight the Viking longships.
Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one half of the
men were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and
harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent
farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of common
land, more large private estates headed by a lord, and a more
stratified society in which the king and important families more
powerful and the peasants more curtailed. The witan became mere
witnesses. Many free coerls of the older days became bonded. The
village community tended to become a large private estate headed by a
lord. But the lord does not have the power to encroach upon the rights
of common that exist within the community.
In 886, a treaty between Alfred and the Vikings divided the
country along the war front and made the wergeld of every free farmer,
whether English or Viking, 200s. Men of higher rank were given a
wergeld of 4 1/2 marks of pure gold. A mark was probably a Viking
denomination and a mark of gold was equal to nine marks of silver in
later times and probably in this time. The word "earl" replaced the
word "eorldormen" and the word "thegn" replaced the word "aetheling"
after the Danish settlement. The ironed pleats of Viking clothing
indicated a high status of the wearer. The Vikings brought combs and
the practice of regular hair-combing to England.
King Alfred gave land with jurisdictional powers within its
boundaries such as the following: "This is the bequest which King
Alfred make unequivocally to Shaftesbury, to the praise of God and St.
Mary and all the saints of God, for the benefit of my soul, namely a
hundred hides as they stand with their produce and their men, and my
daughter AEthelgifu to the convent along with the inheritance, since
she took the veil on account of bad health; and the jurisdiction to the
convent, which I myself possessed, namely obstruction and attacks on a
man's house and breach of protection. And the estates which I have
granted to the foundation are 40 hides at Donhead and Compton, 20 hides
at Handley and Gussage 10 hides at Tarrant, 15 hides at Iwerve and 15
hides at Fontmell.
The witnesses of this are Edward my son and Archbishop
AEthelred and Bishop Ealhferth and Bishop AEthelhead and Earl Wulfhere
and Earl Eadwulf and Earl Cuthred and Abbot Tunberht and Milred my
thegn and AEthelwulf and Osric and Brihtulf and Cyma. If anyone alters
this, he shall have the curse of God and St. Mary and all the saints of
God forever to all eternity. Amen."
Sons usually succeeded their fathers on the same land as shown
by this lifetime lease: "Bishop Denewulf and the community at
Winchester lease to Alfred for his lifetime 40 hides of land at
Alresford, in accordance with the lease which Bishop Tunbriht had
granted to his parents and which had run out, on condition that he
renders every year at the autumnal equinox three pounds as rent, and
church dues, and the work connected with church dues; and when the need
arises, his men shall be ready both for harvesting and hunting; and
after his death the property shall pass undisputed to St. Peter's.
These are the signatures of the councilors and of the members of the
community who gave their consent, namely ..."
Alfred invented a graduated candle with spaces indicating one
hour of burning, which could be used as a clock. He used a ventilated
cow's horn to put around the top of the candle to prevent its blowing
out, and then devised a wooden lantern with a horn window. He described
the world as like a yolk in the middle of an egg whose shell moves
around it. This agreed with the position of Ptolemy Claudius of
Alexandria, who showed the curvature of the earth from north to south
by observing that the Polar Star was higher in the north and lower in
the south. That it was curved from east to west followed from the
observation that two clocks placed one west and one east would record a
different time for the same eclipse of the moon.
Alfred wrote poems on the worthiness of wisdom and knowledge in
preference to material pleasures, pride, and fame, in dealing with
life's sorrow and strife. His observations on human nature and his
proverbs include:
1. As one sows, so will he mow.
2. Every man's doom [judgment] returns to his door.
3. He who will not learn while young, will repent of it when old.
4. Weal [prosperity] without wisdom is worthless.
5. Though a man had 70 acres sown with red gold, and the gold grew like
grass, yet he is not a whit the worthier unless he gain friends for
himself.
6. Gold is but a stone unless a wise man has it.
7. It's hard to row against the sea flood; so it is against misfortune.
8. He who toils in his youth to win wealth, so that he may enjoy ease
in his old age, has well bestowed his toil.
9. Many a man loses his soul through silver.
10. Wealth may pass away, but wisdom will remain, and no man may perish
who has it for his comrade.
11. Don't choose a wife for her beauty nor for wealth, but study her
disposition.
12. Many an apple is bright without and bitter within.
13. Don't believe the man of many words.
14. With a few words a wise man can compass much.
15. Make friends at market, and at church, with poor and with rich.
16. Though one man wielded all the world, and all the joy that dwells
therein, he could not therewith keep his life.
17. Don't chide with a fool.
18. A fool's bolt is soon shot.
19. If you have a child, teach it men's manners while it is little. If
you let him have his own will, he will cause you much sorrow when he
comes of age.
20. He who spares the rod and lets a young child rule, shall rue it
when the child grows old.
21. Either drinking or not drinking is, with wisdom, good.
22. Relatives often quarrel together.
23. The barkless dog bites ill.
24. Be wise of word and wary of speech, then all shall love you.
25. We may outride, but not outwit, the old man.
26. Be not so mad as to tell your friend all your thoughts.
27. If you and your friend fall out, then your enemy will know what
your friend knew before.
28. Don't choose a deceitful man as a friend, for he will do you harm.
29. The false one will betray you when you least expect it.
30. Don't choose a scornful false friend, for he will steal your goods
and deny the theft.
31. Take to yourself a steadfast man who is wise in word and deed; he
will prove a true friend in need.
To restore education and religion, Alfred disseminated the
Anglo- Saxon Chronicles; the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of
the English Nation; the "Consolidation of Philosophy" by Roman
philosopher Boethius, which related the use of adversity to develop the
soul, and described the goodness of God and how the highest happiness
comes from spiritual values and the soul, which are eternal, rather
than from material or earthly pursuits, which are temporal; and Pope
Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he had translated into English and was
the fundamental book on the duty of a bishop, which included a duty to
teach laymen; and Orosius' History of the World, which he had
translated into English. Alfred's advice to pastors was to live as they
had been taught from books and to teach this manner of life to others.
To be avoided was pride, the mind's deception of seeking glory in the
name of doing good works, and the corruption of high office. Bede was
England's first scholar, first theologian, and first historian. He
wrote poetry, theological books, homilies, and textbooks on grammar,
rhetoric [public speaking and debating], arithmetic, and astronomy. He
adhered to the doctrine that death entered the world by the sin of
Adam, the first man. He began the practice of dating years from the
birth of Christ and believed that the earth was round. Over the earth
was a fiery spherical firmament. Above this were the waters of the
heavens. Above this were the upper heavens, which contained the angels
and was tempered with ice. He declared that comets portend downfalls of
kingdoms, pestilence, war, winds, or heat. This reflected the church's
view that a comet was a ball of fire flung from the right hand of an
angry God as a warning to mankind, usually for disbelief. Storms were
begun by the devil.
A famous poem, the oral legend of Beowulf, a hero who led his
men into adventures and performed great feats and fought monsters and
dragons, was put into writing with a Christian theme. In it, loyalty to
one's lord is a paramount virtue. Also available in writing was the
story of King Arthur's twelve victorious battles against the pagan
Saxons, authored by Nennius.
There were professional story tellers attached to great men.
Others wandered from court to court, receiving gifts for their story
telling. Men usually told oral legends of their own feats and those of
their ancestors after supper.
Alfred had monasteries rebuilt with learned and moral men
heading them. He built a nunnery which was headed by his daughter as
prioress. He built a strong wall with four gates around London, which
he had taken into his control. He appointed his son-in-law, who was one
of his eorldormen, to be alderman [older man] to govern London and to
be the shire's earl. A later king built a palace in London, although
Winchester was still the royal capital town. When the king traveled, he
and his retinue were fed by the local people at their expense.
After Alfred's death, his daughter Aethelflared ruled the
country for seven years. She had more fortified burhs built and led
soldiers to victories.
Burhs grew into towns and some towns into boroughs by obtaining
a charter from the king. Their citizens were landholding freemen
called."burgesses". A borough typically was a place of refuge with
earth works, and perhaps a garrrison; it had a market place in which
men could buy cattle and other goods and have the sale attested by
official witnesses and toll was taken from them; and it had a meeting
place at which a court was held.
Under the royalty were the nobles. An earl headed each shire as
representative of the King. The term "earl" came to denote an office
instead of a nobleman. He led the array of his shire to do battle if
the shire was attacked. He executed all royal commands. An earl
received grants of land and could claim hospitality and maintenance for
himself, his officers, and his servants. He collected a third of the
revenues derived from tolls and duties levied in the boroughs of his
shire. The office tended to be hereditary. Royal representatives called
"reeves" started to assist them. The reeve took security from every
person for the maintenance of the public peace. He also tracked cattle
thieves, brought suspects to court, gave judgments according to the
doom books, and delivered offenders to punishment.
Under the earls were the thegns. By service to the King, it was
possible for a coerl to rise to become a thegn and to be given land by
the King. Other thegns performed functions of magistrates. A thegn was
later identified as a person with five hides of land, a kitchen, a
church, a bell house, a judicial place at the burhgemote [a right of
magistracy], and an appointment in the King's hall. He was bound to
service in war by virtue of his landholding instead of by his
relationship to the king. Nobility was now a territorial attribute,
rather than one of birth. The wergeld of a thegn was 1200s. when that
of a ceorl or ordinary freeman was 200s. The wergeld of an earl or
bishop was four times that of a thegn: 5800s. The wergeld of a king or
archbishop was six times that of a thegn: 7200s. The higher a man's
wergeld, the higher was his legal status in the scale of punishment,
giving credible evidence, and participation in legal proceedings. The
sokemen were freemen who had inherited their own land, chose their own
lord, and attended and were subject to their lord's court. That is,
their lord has sake [sac] and soke [soc] jurisdiction over them - the
right to hold a court and to receive the profits of jurisdiction. A
ceorl typically had a single hide of land. A smallholder rented land of
about 30 acres from a landlord, which he paid by doing work on the
lord's demesne [land held by the one lowest in the scale of holding who
has a general right of doing with it what he pleases] land, paying
money rent, or paying a food rent such as in eggs or chickens.
Smallholders made up about two fifths of the population. A cottager had
one to five acres of land and depended on others for his living. Among
these were shepherds, ploughmen, swineherds, and blacksmiths. They also
participated in the agricultural work, especially at harvest time.
It was possible for a thegn to become an earl, probably by the
possession of forty hides. He might even acquire enough land to qualify
him for the witan. Women could be present at the witanagemot and
shiregemote [meeting of the people of the shire]. They could sue and be
sued in the courts. They could independently inherit, possess, and
dispose of property. A wife's inheritance was her own and under no
control of her husband.
Marriage required the consent of the lady and her friends. The
man also had to arrange for the foster lean, that is, remuneration for
rearing and support of expected children. He also declared the amount
of money or land he would give the lady for her consent, that is, the
morgengift, and what he would bequeath her in case of his death. It was
given to her on the morning after the wedding night. The family of the
bride was paid a "mund" for transferring the rightful protection they
possessed over her to the family of the husband. If the husband died
and his kindred did not accept the terms sanctioned by law, her kindred
could repurchase the rightful protection. If she remarried within a
year of his death, she had to forfeit the morgengift and his nearest
kin received the lands and possessions she had. The word for man was
"waepnedmenn" or weaponed person. A woman was "wifmenn" or wife person,
with "wif" being derived from the word for weaving.
Great men and monasteries had millers, smiths, carpenters,
architects, agriculturists, fishermen, weavers, embroiders, dyers, and
illuminators.
For entertainment, minstrels sang ballads about heroes or Bible
stories, harpers played, jesters joked, and tumblers threw and caught
balls and knives. There was gambling, dice games, and chasing deer with
hounds.
Fraternal guilds were established for mutual advantage and
protection. A guild imposed fines for any injury of one member by
another member. It assisted in paying any murder fine imposed on a
member. It avenged the murder of a member and abided by the
consequences. It buried its members and purchased masses for his soul.
Mercantile guilds in seaports carried out commercial
speculations not possible by the capital of only one person.
There were some ale houses, probably part of certain dwellings.
It was usual for a dying man to confess his sins to a priest.
For the sake of his soul, the priest often suggested the man give some
of his chattel to the church, the poor, or other pious uses. By the
700s, the words of a dying man giving chattel for the sake of his soul
were expected to be carried out. Later is the "post obit gift" by which
a man gives land to the church, with the king's consent, but enjoys the
land during his lifetime by stating in writing "I give certain land
after my death" in a special "book". The church takes possession of the
land after his death. He may make a conditional such gift, leaving the
land to his wife for her life with a rent paid to the church and the
church taking possession of the land on her death. These two procedures
coalesce into one written will used in the 800s, 900s, and 1000s. This
will also includes distributions to family and kinsmen and perhaps to
creditors. If the will is made by the very great people: kings, queens,
king's sons, bishops, earldormen, and king's thegns, it requires the
king's consent, which may be bought by a large heriot. And a bishop
usually sets his cross to the will, denouncing any who infringe it to
the torments of hell. The dead man's parish church is paid a mortuary
when he is buried.
The Law
The special authority of the king and his peace gradually
superseded the customary jurisdiction of the local courts as to
preservation of the peace and punishment of offenses. All criminal
offenses became breaches of the king's peace and were deemed acts of
personal disobedience and made an offender the king's enemy. This
notion developed from the special sanctity of the king's house and his
special protection of his attendants and servants. An offender made
fines to the king for breach of his peace and fines and forfeitures to
him from court decisions in criminal and civil cases. Offenses
especially dealt with in various parts of the Anglo-Saxon laws were
treason, homicide, wounding, assault, and theft. Treason to one's lord,
especially to the king, was punishable by death. Compassing or
imagining the king's death was treason.
King Alfred collected regulations from various church synods and
commanded that many of them which English forefathers had observed to
be written out - those which appealed to him; and many of those that
did not appeal to him he rejected, with the consent of his Witan or
commanded them to be observed in a different way. "These are the
regulations which the Almighty God himself spoke to Moses and ordered
him to observe and subsequently the only-born son of the Lord, our God,
that is the Savior Christ confirmed ...":
1. Do not love other strange gods before me.
2. Do not speak My name idly, for you will not be guiltless with Me if
you idly speak My name.
3. Remember to hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves six days, and
on the seventh day rest yourselves. For in six days, God the Father
made the heavens and the earth, the seas and all creatures that are in
them, and rested himself on the seventh day, and therefore God has
sanctified it.
4. Honour your father and your mother that God gave you so that you may
be the longer living on earth.
5. Do not kill.
6. Do not lie in sexual union secretly.
7. Do not steal.
8. Do not speak false evidence.
9. Do not wish for your neighbour's property unrightfully.
10. Do not make yourselves golden or silver gods.
11. If anyone buy a Christian slave, let him serve for six years and on
the seventh let him be free without payment. With such clothes as he
entered into service, let him leave with. If he has a wife of his own
providing, let her leave with him. If the master provided him with a
wife, both she and her children shall belong to the master. If the
slave then says `I do not want to leave my master or my wife or my
child or my property', let his master bring him to the door of the
Temple and perforate his ear with an awl as a sign that he shall ever
afterwards be a slave.
12. Though someone sell his daughter into slavery do not let her be a
slave entirely as are other maid servants. He has not the right to sell
her abroad among foreign people. But if he who bought her does not care
for her, let her be free among a foreign people. But if he i.e. the
purchaser allows his son to cohabit with her, give her the morning gift
and ensure that she has clothing and that she has the value of her
maidenhood, that is the dowry - let him give her that. If he does none
of those things for her, then she shall be free.
13. The person who slays another deliberately shall suffer death. He
that has killed another in self defense or involuntarily or
unintentionally, as God delivered him i.e. the victim into his hands
and providing he i.e. the killer did not set a trap for him - in that
case let him be worthy of his life, and of settling by customary
compensation, if he should seek asylum. If however anyone deliberately
and intentionally kills his neighbour treacherously, pluck him from my
altar so that he should suffer death.
14. He that attacks his father or his mother shall suffer death.
15. He that abducts a freeman and sell him, and it is proved so that he
cannot absolve himself, let him suffer death. He that curses his father
or his mother, let him suffer death.
16. If someone attacks his neighbour with a stone or with his fist, but
he i.e. the victim can still get about with the aid of a staff, let him
i.e. the aggressor provide him with a doctor and do his i.e. the
victim's work for him for as long as he i.e. the victim cannot himself.
17. He that attacks his own non-free servant or his maidservant, and
they are not dead as a result of the attack but live two or three days,
he i.e. the aggressor shall not be so entirely guilty, because it was
his own property he damaged. But if the slave be dead the same day,
then the guilt rests on him i.e. the aggressor.
18. If anyone in the course of a dispute injure a pregnant woman, let
him make compensation for the hurt as judges decide in his case. If she
be dead, let him give life for life.
19. If anyone put out another's eye, let him give his own for it. Tooth
for tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot. Burn for burn. Wound for
wound. Bruise for bruise.
20. If anyone strike the eye of his slave or maidservant out and so
makes them one-eyed, let him free them for that. If he strike out a
tooth, let him do the same.
21. If an ox gore a man or woman so that they are dead, it it be stoned
to death and do not let the flesh be eaten. The owner shall not be
liable if the ox was butting two days before that or even three and the
owner did not know of it. But if he knew of it and would not shut it
i.e. the animal in, and then it killed a man or woman, let it be stoned
to death and let the master be killed or made to pay as the Witan
consider proper. If it gore a son or daughter, let the same penalty
apply. But if it gore a slave or serving-woman, let the owner give 30
shillings of silver and let the ox be stoned to death.
22. If anyone dig a well or open up a closed one and does not close it
up again, let him pay for whatever cattle fall in; but let him have the
dead animal for his own use.
23. If an ox wound another man's ox so it is dead, let them sell the
live ox and share the proceeds, and also the flesh of the dead ox. But
if the owner knew the ox was butting and would not restrain it, let him
hand over the other i.e. live ox for it but let him have all the flesh
of the dead ox for his own use.
24. If anyone steal another man's ox and kill or sell it, let him give
two oxen in restitution. And four sheep for one stolen. If he i.e. the
thief does not have anything to give in restitution, let him be sold
himself to raise the money.
25. If a thief break into a man's house by night and is killed there,
he i.e. the house-owner shall not be guilty of manslaughter. But if he
i.e. the house-owner does this after sunrise, he is guilty of
manslaughter, and shall himself perish, unless he acted in
self-defence. If there is found in the possession of the living thief
things he had already stolen, let him make restitution for it two-fold.
26. If anyone damage another man's vineyard or his crops or any part of
his estate, let him pay compensation according to how it is assessed.
27. If a fire is lit in order to burn rubbish, let him who started the
fire pay compensation for any consequent damage.
28. If anyone entrusts any possession to his friend and the friend
appropriates it for himself, let him i.e. the friend clear himself and
prove that he committed no fraud in the matter. If it was livestock,
and he says that raiders took it, or it perished of itself, and if he
has proof, he need not pay up. But if he has no proof, and the original
owner does not believe him, let him make an oath to clear himself.
29. If anyone seduce an uncommitted woman and sleeps with her, let him
pay for her and take her then as his wife. But if the woman's father is
unwilling to let her go, then let the seducer hand over money in
proportion to her dowry.
30. The women who are accustomed to harbour enchanters and wizards and
witches - do not allow them to live.
31. And he that has intercourse with animals shall suffer death.
32. And he that sacrifices to idols, rather than to God alone, let him
suffer death.
33. Do not harass visitors from abroad and foreigners, for you were
formerly strangers on the land of the Egyptians.
34. Do not harm widows and step-children, neither do them any injury.
If you do otherwise, they will call upon Me and I will listen to them,
and then I will slay you with my sword and I will ensure that your
wives shall be widows and your children orphans.
35. If you hand over money as a loan to your comrade who wishes to live
with you, do not coerce him like an underling and do not oppress him
with the interest.
36. If someone has only a single garment to cover and clothe himself
with and he hands it over as a pledge, let it be returned before the
sun sets. If you do not do so then he will call unto Me, and I will
listen to him because I am very clement.
37. Do not reproach you Lord, nor curse the lord of the people.
38. Your tithe i.e. tenth-part of profit and your first-fruits of
moving animals and growing crops, offer to God.
39. All the flesh that wild animals leave, do not eat it but give it to
the dogs.
40. Do not bother to give credence to the word of a false man, and do
not approve his opinions; do not repeat any of his assertions.
41. Do not join in the false judgment and evil aspirations of the many
nor join in their rumours and outcry, against your own conscience, at
the incitement of some ignorant person. Do not support them.
42. If the stray cattle of another man come into your possession,
though it be the property of your enemy, let him know about it.
43. Judge equably, do not lay down one rule for the rich, another for
the poor; do not decide one way for a friend, another for a foe.
44. Always shun falsehood.
45. Never slay a righteous and innocent man.
46. Never accept bribes, for they very often blind the minds of wise
men and pervert their words.
47. Do not behave unkindly to foreigners and visitors from abroad; do
not harass them with unjust acts.
48. Never swear an oath by heathen gods, nor in any circumstances call
upon them.
Alfred also issued a set of laws to cover the whole country
that he derived from laws of various regional kings in England as
follows:
"1. First we insist that there is particular need that each person
shall keep his oath and his pledge carefully. If anyone be compelled to
give either of these wrongly, either to support treachery to his lord
or to provide any unlawful aid, then it is better to forswear than to
fulfil. But if he pledge himself to that which it is right for him to
fulfil and fails, let him submissively hand over his weapons and his
possessions to his friends to keep, and stay forty days in prison in a
property of the king. Let him undergo there whatever the bishop
prescribes as penance, and let his kinsmen feed him if he himself has
no food. If he has no kin or has no food, let the king's officer feed
him. If one has to compel him to this i.e. to surrender, and otherwise
he is unwilling to co-operate - if they have to bind him he shall
forfeit his weapons and his possessions. If he is slain while
resisting, let him lie uncompensated. If he makes an escape before the
time is up, and he is recaptured, let him stay forty days in prison as
he would have previously. But if he gets away, let him be banished and
excommunicated from all the churches of Christ. Further, if someone has
provided surety for him, let him compensate for the breach of surety as
custom require him, and atone for the breach of pledge as his confessor
imposes in his case.
2. If anyone seek out as sanctuary for any offence any of the monastic
houses to which the king's revenue applies, or any other exempt
community that is worthy of respect he shall have a period of three
days of immunity, unless he wants to negotiate before that. If someone
harms him during that period, either by assault or by fettering him,,
or by a penetrating wound, let the aggressor pay compensation for each
of such attacks according to proper practice, both with wergeld and
with a fine, and 120 shillings to that community, as compensation for
breach of sanctuary, and let his own possessions be forfeit.
3. If anyone violate the king's surety, let him pay compensation for
the original charge as customary law direct, and for the violation of
surety with five pounds of the purer pennies. In the case of breach of
an archbishop's surety or protection, let him compensate with three
pounds. For violation of the surety or protection of another bishop or
official [earldorman], let him make compensation with two pounds.
4. If anyone plot against the king's life, either directly or by
harbouring outlaws or indirectly through the agency of his men, let him
be liable with his life and with all that he owns. If he desire to
prove himself loyal, let him do that by paying a king's wergeld.
Similar protection we ordain for all ranks, both common and noble
[earl]: whoever plots against his master's life shall be liable with
his life and with all that he owns - or let him show his loyalty by
paying his master's wergeld.
5. Also we appoint to every church that a bishop has consecrated this
right of sanctuary: that if a party to a feud run or ride to the
church, then no one may drag him forth for seven days. If however
anyone does that, then let him be liable at the rate of breach of a
king's protection and at the rate of breach of church sanctuary - more
if he take more from the site. [And the sanctuary seeker shall be safe]
if he can survive hunger, and unless he himself try to fight his way
out. If the community have greater need of their church, let them keep
him in another building, and let that not have the more doors than the
church itself; Let the church official ensure that no one give the
sanctuary-seeker food during that period. If he himself is willing to
hand over his weapons to his foes, let them keep him for 30 days and
inform his kin about him. Also it shall count as sanctuary if some man
seek out a church about any offence that had not previously been
revealed, and there confess himself in God's name - let the penalty be
half remitted. He that steal on Sunday or at Yule or at Easter or on
Holy Thursday or on the Rogation days - for each of those we intend
that there should be a double-penalty, as during Lent.
6. If anyone steal something in a church, let him pay a plain
compensation and the fine such as they consider appropriate to the
plain compensation, and let them strike the hand off with which he did
it i.e. the deed. If he wishes to redeem his hand, and they consent to
that, let him pay in proportion to his wergeld.
7. If anyone fights in the king's hall or draw his weapon, and he is
seized, let the penalty be at the king's judgement, either death or
life, as he is willing to grant him. If he escapes and is captured
later, let him pay in proportion to his wergeld, and atone for the
offence with wergeld and fine, as he may deserve by his act.
8. If anyone abducts a nun of a nunnery without the king's or the
bishop's leave, let him pay 120 shillings, half to the king, half to
the bishop and the church patron who had charge of the nun. If she
lives longer than he that abducted her, let her not have any of his
estate. If she bears a child, let that not have any more of the estate
than the mother. If anyone slay her child let him pay the king the
maternal kindred's share; to the paternal kin let him pay their share.
9. If anyone slay a woman with child, while the child still be within
her, let him pay full compensation for the woman and half compensation
for the child according to the wergeld of the father's kin. Let the
fine payable to the king always be 60 shillings, until the
corresponding simple compensation rises to 30 shillings. When the
simple compensation rises to that level, then let the fine be 120
shillings. Formerly there was a defined fine for a gold-thief, and a
horse-thief and a bee-thief and many special fines greater than others.
Now all are alike except for an illegal slayer and that is 120
shillings.
10. If a man has intercourse with the wife of a 1200 shilling wergeld
man, let him pay in compensation 120 shillings to the husband. For a
600 shilling wergeld man i.e. husband, let him pay in compensation 100
shillings. For a common man [ceorl] i.e. husband, let him make
compensation of 40 shillings.
11. If someone grabs the breast of a common woman, let him compensate
with five shillings. If he throws her to the ground but does not have
sexual intercourse with her, let him compensate with 60 shillings. If
he has sexual intercourse with her let him compensate with sixty
shillings. If some other man had previously lain with her, then let the
compensation be half that. If someone accuse her of complicity, let her
clear herself with an oath guaranteed by sixty hides of land, or
forfeit half the compensation. If this happens to a nobly born woman,
let the compensation increase in proportion to the wergeld.
12. If someone burns or cuts down another person's trees without
permission, let him pay over 5 shillings for each substantial tree, and
thereafter, no matter how many there are, five pence for each tree, and
thirty shillings as a fine.
13. In the course of their joint work felling trees, if someone is
killed by accident, let the tree involved be given to his kin, and let
them remove it off the property within 30 days; otherwise let him
possess it that owns the forest.
14. If someone is born dumb or deaf, so that he can neither deny or
confess his sins, let the father make compensation for his misdeeds.
15. If someone fights or draws his weapon in the presence of an
archbishop, let him make compensation with 150 shillings. If this
occurs before another bishop or royal official [earldorman] let him
make compensation with 100 shillings.
16. If someone steals a cow or mare and drives off a foal or calf, let
him pay over one shilling as well as paying compensation for the adult
animals according to their value.
17. If anyone entrust a child into the keeping of others, and he i.e.
the offspring die while in that guardianship, let him that did the
fostering prove his innocence of any crime if anyone accuse him of it.
18. If anyone grabs at a nun's clothing or breast with sexual intent,
unless with her consent, let him pay double the rate of compensation we
previously arranged for a lay-person. If she commit adultery and she is
a betrothed woman, if she is a commoner, let 60 shillings be paid in
compensation to the guarantor, and let that be in livestock or cattle,
but let no one give any human as part of it. If she be of 600 shilling
wergeld, let 100 shillings be paid in compensation to the guarantor. If
she be of 1200 shilling wergeld, let compensation of 120 shillings be
paid to the guarantor.
19. If anyone lends his weapon to another so that he may kill with it,
they may combine, if they are willing, in the matter of paying the
wergeld. If they are unwilling to co-operate, let him that proffered
the weapon pay a third part of the wergeld and a third part of the
fine. If he i.e. the loaner of the weapon prefer to clear himself and
assert that he knew of no evil-intent in making the loan, he may do so.
20. If someone entrust cattle to another man's monk, without the
approval of the patron if that monk, and it gets lost, let he that
originally owned it suffer the loss.
21. If a priest slay another man, let all that he i.e. the priest
brought into the monastic community be turned over to the possession of
the victim's representatives, and let the bishop unfrock him; then he
shall be removed from the monastery, unless the civil patron interceded
for him.
22. If someone wishes in the local assembly to declare a claim for debt
to the king's officer, and then wishes to cancel it, let him impute
i.e. transfer it to a truer source if he can. If he cannot, let him
forfeit the single value.
23. If a dog rends or bites someone, for the first misdeed let the
owner hand over 6 shillings, if he is still giving it food. For as
second occurrence, let him give 12 shillings, and for a third 30
shillings. If, upon any of these misdeeds, the dog escapes, nonetheless
the penalty proceeds. If the dog commit more misdeeds and he i.e. the
owner still keeps him, let him pay compensation at the level of a full
wergeld as well as wound-compensation according to what he i.e. the dog
has done.
24. If an ox wounds someone, let him i.e. the owner hand the animal
over or come forward with some solution.
25. If someone forces a commoner's slave-woman to sexual intercourse,
let him compensate the owner with 5 shillings and pay 60 shillings
fine. If a male slave compel a female slave to sexual intercourse, let
him atone with his testicles.
26. If someone force an underage woman into sexual intercourse, let the
compensation be as that of an adult person.
27. If someone without kin on his father's side gets into a fight and
kills someone, if he has maternal relatives, let them pay a third part
of the wergeld; and a third part his guild-brethren; for a third part
unpaid let him flee. If he has no maternal relatives, let the
guild-brethren pay a half; for a half unpaid let him flee.
28. If someone kill a man so circumstanced and if he has no kinfolk,
let them pay half the wergeld to the king, half to his guild-brethren.
29. If anyone in a group kills a 200 shilling wergeld man who is
guiltless, let him that acknowledges the blow pay over wergeld and
fine, and let every man who was of the party hand over 30 shillings in
token of his complicity.
30. If it is a case of a 600 shilling wergeld man, let each of them pay
60 shillings as a token of their complicity, and let him that struck
the fatal blow pay wergeld and fine.
31. If he that is killed is a 1200 shilling wergeld man, let each of
them pay 120 shillings, and let the one who struck the fatal blow pay
wergeld and fine. If a group commit this sort of killing, and later
deny responsibility on oath, let them all be accused, and let them pay
over the wergeld as a group, and together pay one fine such as
corresponds to the wergeld.
32. If someone commits slander and it is proved against him, let him
make atonement with no lighter penalty than having is tongue cut out.
It i.e. the tongue must not be redeemed for any lesser value than would
be reckoned in proportion to the wergeld.
33. If someone reproach another with breach of church-witnessed pledge
and wishes to accuse him of not fulfilling any of those pledges that he
gave him, let the accuser make his preliminary oath in four churches,
and the other i.e. the accused, if he wishes to assert his good faith -
let him do that in twelve churches.
34. Also it is laid down for traders that they should produce before
the king's officer at the local assembly those people that they are
taking inland with them, and let it be established how many of them
there are. And let them take only such men as they can afterward be
accountable for at the local assembly. An if they have need of more men
along with them on their journey, let it always be declared, as often
as is necessary, to the king's officer before the assembly.
35. If someone restrains a free man who is innocent, let him pay
compensation of ten shillings. If he flogs him, compensation of twenty
shillings. If he put him to torture compensation of thirty shillings.
If as a humiliation he shave his head like a homolan, let him pay
compensation of ten shillings. If he shaves him i.e. his head like a
priest's, without binding him let him pay compensation of thirty
shillings. If he shaves off his beard, let him pay compensation of
twenty shillings. If he ties him up and then shaves his head like a
priest's, let him pay compensation of sixty shillings.
36. It is established that if someone has a spear over his shoulder and
someone else impales himself upon it, he i.e. the spear-carrier shall
pay the wergeld without any fine. If he is impaled from in front, let
him i.e. the spear-carrier pay the wergeld. If someone accuses him i.e.
the spear-carrier of deliberately doing it, let him assert his
innocence at a rate corresponding to the fine, and by that finish with
the fine. And this applies if the point is above the rest of the shaft;
if they are both level, point and shaft, let it count as no risk.
37. If someone wants to seek a new lord, transferring from one district
to another district, let him do it with the knowledge of the chief
officer to whom he was originally responsible in his shire. If he does
it without his i.e. the officer's knowledge, let him who harbours him
as his follower pay over 120 shillings as a fine. But let him divide
it, paying the king half in the shire where the man was originally
answerable, and half in that he has moved to. If he i.e. the man who
moves had done anything wrong where he came from, let him who receives
him as his follower pay the compensation and a fine of 120 shillings to
the king.
38. If someone starts a fight in front of the king's officer at an
assembly, let him pay compensation of wergeld and a fine, as it is
customary; and as a priority a fine of 120 shillings to the officer
[earldorman] concerned. If he disturb the assembly by drawing a weapon,
let him pay 120 shillings to the officer by way of fine. If something
of this sort occurs before the king's officer's deputy or a royal
priest, let him pay 30 shillings by way of fine.
39. If someone starts a fight on the floor of a free man's house, let
him pay compensation of six shillings to the freeman. If he draws his
weapon but does not fight, let the compensation be half that. If either
of these offences takes place in the house of a 600 shilling wergeld
man, let the rate rise to triple the compensation due the freeman. In
the case of a 1200 shilling wergeld man, a rate twice that of the
compensation of the 600 shilling wergeld man.
40. For breaking into a royal residence the penalty shall be 120
shillings. Into an archbishop's, ninety shillings. Into another
bishop's or a royal officer's, 60 shillings. Into a 1200 shilling
werwgeld man's, thirty shillings. Into a 600 shilling wergeld man's
fifteen shillings. For breaking into a freeman's property the penalty
shall be five shillings. If something of this kind takes place while
the levy [fyrd] is on duty elsewhere, or during Lent, let it be a
double compensation. If someone sets aside holy custom publicly in Lent
without an exemption, let him pay a compensation of 120 shillings.
41. The man who has charter land [bocland] which his kin left him, is
not allowed, we enact, to part with it outside his kin-group, if there
is written evidence or spoken witness that it was forbidden to be done
by those people who originally acquired it or by those who passed it to
him. Let him i.e. the one who opposes the alienation process declare
any such stipulation in the presence of the king and the bishop, with
his own kin attending.
42. Also we command that the man who knows his enemy is quiescent at
home should not start a fight before he has asked him for justice. If
he has the strength to surround his enemy and besiege him, let him
contain him for 7 days within and not attack him if he i.e. the enemy
is willing to abide within. After seven days if he is willing to
surrender and hand over his weapons, let him i.e. the avenger keep him
unharmed for thirty days and inform his kinsmen and his friends about
him. But if he i.e. the enemy flee to a church, let the matter be
resolved according to the privilege of the church, as we detailed
above. But if he i.e. the avenger does not have the resources to
besiege him i.e. the enemy, let him ride to the royal officer and ask
him for help. If he i.e. the officer is unwilling to assist, let him
ride and ask the king, before he mounts an attack.
Further, if someone happen upon his enemy and did not know beforehand
that he was quiescent at home, if he i.e. the enemy is willing to hand
over his weapons, let him be held for thirty days and inform his
friends about him; if he is not willing to hand over his weapons then
he i.e. the avenger may attack him. If he i.e. the enemy is willing to
surrender and hand over his weapons and yet someone still attacks him,
let the aggressor pay over wergeld and wound compensation, according to
what he has done, and pay a fine, and lose his kin-status.
We also declare someone may fight in support of his lord without blame,
if anyone has attacked the lord; so too the lord may fight in support
of his follower. In the same way, someone may fight on behalf of his
blood relative if someone attack him wrongfully, but not take the side
of a kinsman against his lord - that we do not permit. Someone may
fight blamelessly if he discovers another with his lawful wife behind
closed doors or under the one cover, or with his legitimate daughter,
or with his legitimate sister or with his mother if she was given
lawfully to his father.
43. To all free people let these following days be granted as holidays
but not to slaves and servile workers; twelve days at Christmas and the
day that Christ overcame the Devil, and St. Gregory's commemoration
day, and seven days before Easter and seven after, and one day at the
celebration of St. Peter and St. Paul and the full week in harvest
before St. Mary's Mass, and one day for the celebration of All Hallows.
The four Wednesdays in the Ember weeks shall be granted to all slaves
to sell to anyone that pleases them to anything either that any man
will give them in God's name or what they in any spare time can manage."
44.-77. The compensations for wounds is as follows: head if both bones
of the head be pierced 30s., head if the outer bone only be pierced
15s.; an inch long wound in the area of the hair 1s., an inch long
wound in the front of the hair 2s.; striking off the other ear 30s., if
the hearing be affected so that he cannot hear 60s.; putting out an eye
60s. 6 1/3 d., if the eye stay in the head but he can see nothing with
it 1/3 of the compensation be remitted; striking off a nose 60s.;
striking a front tooth 8s., a back tooth 4s., a canine tooth 15s.;
severing cheeks 15s., breaking a chin bone 12s.; perforating a windpipe
12s.; removing a tongue the same compensatin for any eye; wounding in
the shoulder so that the muscle fluid flows out 30s.; shattering the
arm above the elbow 15s.; shattering both arm bones 30s.; striking off
the thumb 30s., if the nail is struck off 5s.; striking off the
forefinger 15s., for the nail 4s.; striking off the middle finger 12s.,
for the nail 2s.; striking off the ring finger 17s., for the nail 4s.;
striking off the little finger 9s., for the nail 1s.; wounding in the
belly 30s., if the wound go through the body 20s. for each opening;
perforating the thigh or hip 30s., if it be disabled 30s.; piercing the
leg below the knee 12s., if he is disabled below the knee 30s.;
striking off the great toe 20s., the second toe 15s., the middle toe
9s., the fourth toe 6s., the little toe 5s.; wounding in the testicles
so that he cannot bear children 80s.; cutting off the arm below the
elbow with the hand cut off 80s., wounding before the hair-line and
below the sleeve and below the knee twice the value; permanently
damaging the loins 60s., it they are stabbed 15s., if they are pierced
through 30s.; wounding in the shoulder if the victim be alive 80s.;
maiming a hand outwardly, providing it can be treated effectively 20s.,
if half the hand be lost 40s.; breaking a rib without breaking the skin
10s., if the skin be broken and the bone be extruded 15s.; cutting away
an eye hand or foot 66s.6 1/3 d.; cutting off the leg at the knee 80s.;
breaking a shoulder 20s.; hacking into a shoulder so that the bone
extrudes 15s.; severing the tendon of the foot and if it can be treated
so that will be sound again 12s., but if he is lame on account of the
wound and he cannot be cured 30s.; severing the lesser tendon 6s.;
severing the muscles up by the neck and damage them so severely that he
has no control over them and however lives on thus maimed 100s., unless
the Witan appoint him a juster and greater sum.
Judicial Procedure
Cases were held at monthly meetings of the hundred court. The
king or one of his reeves, conducted the trial by compurgation, which
was an appeal to the supernatural.
In compurgation, the one complaining, called the "plaintiff",
and the one defending, called the "defendant", each told their story
and put his hand on the Bible and swore "By God this oath is clean and
true". A slip or a stammer would mean he lost the case. Otherwise,
community members would stand up to swear on behalf of the plaintiff or
the defendant as to their reputation for veracity. The value of a man's
oath was commensurate with his value or wergeld. A man's brothers were
usually his compurgators. The number of compurgators varied according
to the nature of the case and the rank of the persons concerned. If
there were too few "compurgators", usually twelve in number, or recited
poorly, their party lost. If this process was inconclusive, the parties
could bring witnesses to declare such knowledge as they had as
neighbors. These witnesses, male and female, swore to particular points
determined by the court.
If compurgation failed, the defendant was told to go to church
and to take the sacrament only if he was innocent. If he took the
sacrament, he was tried by the process of "ordeal", which was
administered by the church. In the ordeal by cold water, he was given a
drink of holy water and then bound hand and foot and thrown into water.
If he floated, he was guilty beccause the holy water had rejected him.
If he sank, he was innocent. It was not necessary to drown to be deemed
innocent. In the ordeal by hot water, he had to pick up a stone from
inside a boiling cauldron. If his hand was healing in three days, he
was innocent. If it was festering, he was guilty. A similar ordeal was
that of hot iron, in which one had to carry in his hands a hot iron for
a certain distance. In the ordeal of the consecrated morsel, one would
swallow a morsel; if he choked on it, he was guilty. The results of the
ordeal were taken to indicate the will of God.
An archbishop's or bishop's oath was incontrovertible. If they
were accused, they could clear themselves with an oath that they were
guiltless. Lesser ranks could clear themselves with the oaths of at
least three compurgators of their rank or, for more serious offenses,
undergo the ordeal.
The shire and hundred courts were held for free tenants of a
lord and the judges were the tenants themselves. The feudal courts were
held for unfree tenants and the lord or his steward was the judge.
The earl presided over the shire court. He received one-third
of the profits of justice. The judges were the owners of certain pieces
of land. The shire court was held twice a year. There was little
distinction between secular and spiritual jurisdiction. A bishop sat
on the shire court. The shire court fulfilled all three functions of
government: judicial, legislative, and executive.
The courts had no efficient mode of compelling attendance or
enforcing their orders, except by outlawing the offender, that is,
putting him outside the protection of the law, so that anyone might
kill him with impunity. In grave cases, a special expedition could be
called against an offender.
The individual wronged had his choice of payment in money or engaging
in a blood feud. The sums of money of the system of bot, wer, and wite
were enormous, and often could not be paid. Then a man could be
declared outlaw or sold as a slave. If a person was outlawed, he also
forfeited all his goods to the king.
Cases of general importance concerned mayslaying, wounding, and
cattle-stealing.
A person convicted of murder, i.e. killing by stealth or
robbery [taking from a person's robe, that is, his person or breaking
into his home to steal] could be hung and his possessions confiscated.
A man had a self-help right to arrest a thief hand-habbende [a thief
found with the stolen goods in his hands] and a thief back-berend [a
thief found with the stolen goods on his back or about his person].
Any inanimate or animate object or personal chattel which was
found by a court to be the immediate cause of death was forfeited as
"deodand", for instance, a tree from which a man fell to his death, a
beast which killed a man, a sword of a third party not the slayer that
was used to kill a man. The deodand was to go to the dead man's kin so
they could wreak their vengeance on it, which in turn would cause the
dead man to lie in peace.
This is a lawsuit regarding rights to feed pigs in a certain
woodland: "In the year 825 which had passed since the birth of Christ,
and in the course of the second Indiction, and during the reign of
Beornwulf, King of Mercia, a council meeting was held in the famous
place called Clofesho, and there the said King Beornwulf and his
bishops and his earls and all the councilors of this nation were
assembled. Then there was a very noteworthy suit about wood pasture at
Sinton, towards the west in Scirhylte. The reeves in charge of the
pigherds wished to extend the pasture farther, and take in more of the
wood than the ancient rights permitted. Then the bishop and the
advisors of the community said that they would not admit liability for
more than had been appointed in AEthelbald's day, namely mast for 300
swine, and that the bishop and the community should have two thirds of
the wood and of the mast. The Archbishop Wulfred and all the councilors
determined that the bishop and the community might declare on oath that
it was so appointed in AEthelbald's time and that they were not trying
to obtain more, and the bishop immediately gave security to Earl
Eadwulf to furnish the oath before all the councilors, and it was
produced in 30 days at the bishop's see at Worcester. At that time Hama
was the reeve in charge of the pigherds at Sinton, and he rode until he
reached Worcester, and watched and observed the oath, as Earl Eadwulf
bade him, but did not challenge it. Here are the names and designations
of those who were assembled at the council meeting ..."
Chapter 3
The Times: 900-1066
There were many large landholders such as the King, earls, and
bishops. Earls were noblemen by birth, and often relatives of the King.
They were his army commanders and the highest civil officials, each
responsible for a shire. A breach of the public peace of an earl would
occasion a fine. Lower in social status were freemen: sokemen, and
then, in decreasing order, villani [villeins], bordarii, and cottarii.
The servi were the slaves. Probably all who were not slaves were
freemen.
Kings typically granted land in exchange for services of
military duties, maintaining fortresses, and repairing bridges. Less
common services required by landlords include equipping a guard ship
and guarding the coast, guarding the lord, military watch, maintaining
the deer fence at the King's residence, alms giving, and church dues.
Since this land was granted in return for service, there were
limitations on its heritability and often an heir had to pay a heriot
to the landlord to obtain the land. A heriot was originally the weapons
and armor of a man killed, which went to the King. The heriot of a
thegn who had soken [or jurisdiction over their own lands] came to be
about 80s.; of a kings' thegn about four lances, two coats of mail, two
swords, and 125s.; of an earl about eight horses, four saddled and four
unsaddled, eight lances, four coats of mail, four swords, and 500s.
There were several thousand thegns, rich and poor, who held
land directly of the King. Some thegns had soken and others did not.
Free farmers who had sought protection from thegns in time of war now
took them as their lords. A freeman could chose his lord, following him
in war and working his land in peace. All able-bodied freemen were
liable to military service in the fyrd [national militia], but not in a
lord's private wars. In return, the lord would protect him against
encroaching neighbors, back him in the courts of law, and feed him in
times of famine. But often, lords raided each other's farmers, who fled
into the hills or woods for safety. Often a lord's fighting men stayed
with him at his large house, but later were given land with inhabitants
on it, who became his tenants. The lords were the ruling class and the
greatest of them sat in the King's council along with bishops, abbots,
and officers of the King's household. The lesser lords were local
magnates, who officiated at the shire and hundred courts.
Staghunting, foxhunting, and hawking were reserved for lords
who did not work with their hands. Every free born person had the right
to hunt other game.
There was a great expansion of arable land. Some land had been
specifically allocated to certain individuals. Some was common land,
held by communities. If a family came to pay the dues and fines on
certain common land, it could become personal to that family and was
then known as heirland. Most land came to be privately held from
community-witnessed allotments or inheritance. Bookland was those
holdings written down in books. This land was usually land that had
been given to the church or monasteries because church clerics could
write. So many thegns gave land to the church, usually a hide, that the
church held 1/3 of the land of the realm. Folkland was that land that
was left over after allotments had been made to the freemen and which
was not common land. It was public land and a national asset and could
be converted to heirland or bookland only by action of the king and
witan. It could also be rented by services to the state via charter. A
holder of folkland might express a wish, e.g. by testamentary action,
for a certain disposition of it, such as an estate for life or lives
for a certain individual. But a distinct act by the king and witan was
necessary for this wish to take effect. Small private transactions of
land could be done by "livery of seisin" in the presence of neighbors.
"Seisin" is rightful possession. A man in possession of land is
presumed to have "seisin", unless and until someone else can establish
a better title by legal process. All estates in land could be let,
lent, or leased by its holders, and was then known as "loenland".
Ploughs and wagons could be drawn by four or more oxen or
horses in sets of two behind each other. Oxenshoes and horseshoes
prevented lameness due to cracked hooves. Horse collars especially
fitted for horses, replaced oxen yoke that had been used on horses. The
horse collar did not restrict breathing and enabled horses to use the
same strength of oxen. Also, horses had better endurance and faster
speed.
A free holder's house was wood, perhaps with a stone
foundation, and roofed with thatch or tiles. There was a main room or
hall, with bed chambers around it. Beyond was the kitchen, perhaps
outside under a lean-to. These buildings were surrounded by a bank or
stiff hedge.
Simple people lived in huts made from wood and mud, with one
door and no windows. They slept around a wood-burning fire in the
middle of the earthen floor. They wore shapeless clothes of goat hair
and unprocessed wool from their sheep. They ate rough brown bread,
vegetable and grain broth, ale from barley, bacon, beans, milk,
cabbage, onion, apples, plums, cherries, and honey for sweetening or
mead. Vegetables grown in the country included onions, leeks, celery,
lettuce, radish, carrots, garlic, shallots, parsnip, dill, chervil,
marigold, coriander, and poppy. In the summer, they ate boiled or raw
veal and wild fowl such as ducks, geese, or pigeons, and game snared in
the forest. Poultry was a luxury food, but recognized as therapeutic
for invalids, especially in broth form [chicken soup]. Venison was
highly prized. There were still some wild boar, which were hunted with
long spears, a greyhound dog, and hunting horns. They sometimes mated
with the domestic pigs which roamed the woodlands. In September, the
old and infirm pigs were slaughtered and their sides of bacon smoked in
the rafters for about a month. Their intestines provided skin for
sausages. In the fall, cattle were slaughtered and salted for food
during the winter because there was no more pasture for them. However,
some cows and breed animals were kept through the winter.
For their meals, people used wooden platters, sometimes
earthenware plates, drinking horns, drinking cups from ash or alderwood
turned on a foot-peddled pole lathe, and bottles made of leather. Their
bowls, pans, and pitchers were made by the potter's wheel. Water could
be boiled in pots made of iron, brass, lead, or clay. Water could be
carried in leather bags because leather working preservative techniques
improved so that tanning prevented stretching or decaying. At the back
of each hut was a hole in the ground used as a latrine, which flies
frequented. Moss was used for toilet paper. Parasitical worms in the
stool were ubiquitous.
Most of the simple people lived in villages of about 20 homes
circling a village green or lining a single winding lane. There were
only first names, and these were usually passed down family lines. To
grind their grain, the villagers used hand mills with crank and gear,
or a communal mill, usually built of oak, driven by power transmitted
through a solid oak shaft, banded with iron as reinforcement, to
internal gear wheels of elm. Almost every village had a watermill. It
might be run by water shooting over or flowing under the wheel.
Clothing for men and women was made from coarse wool, silk, and
linen and was usually brown in color. Only the wealthy could afford to
wear linen or silk. Men also wore leather clothing, such as neckpieces,
breeches, ankle leathers, shoes, and boots. Boots were worn when
fighting. They carried knives or axes under metal belts. They could
carry items by tying leather pouches onto their belts with their
drawstrings. They wore leather gloves for warmth and for heavy working
with their hands.
People were as tall, strong and healthy as in the late 1900s,
not having yet endured the later malnourishment and overcrowding that
was its worst in the 1700s and 1800s. Their teeth were very healthy.
Most adults died in their 40s, after becoming arthritic from hard
labor. People in their 50s were deemed venerable. Boys of twelve were
considered old enough to swear an oath of allegiance to the king. Girls
married in their early teens, often to men significantly older.
The lands of the large landholding lords were administered by
freemen. They had wheat, barley, oats, and rye fields, orchards,
vineyards for wine, and beekeeping areas for honey. On this land lived
not only farm laborers, cattle herders, shepherds, goatherds, and
pigherds, but craftsmen such as goldsmiths, hawkkeepers, dogkeepers,
horsekeepers, huntsmen, foresters, builders, weaponsmiths, embroiders,
bronze smiths, blacksmiths, watermill wrights, wheelwrights, wagon
wrights, iron nail makers, potters, soap makers (made from wood ashes
reacting chemically with fats or oils), tailors, shoemakers, salters
(made salt at the "wyches", which later became towns ending with
'-wich'), bakers, cooks, and gardeners. Most men did carpentry work.
Master carpenters worked with ax, hammer, and saw to make houses,
doors, bridges, milk buckets, washtubs, and trunks. Blacksmiths made
gates, huge door hinges, locks, latches, bolts, and horseshoes. The
lord loaned these people land on which to live for their life, called a
"life estate", in return for their services. The loan could continue to
their widows or children who took up the craft. Mills were usually
powered by water. Candles were made from beeswax, which exuded a bright
and steady light and pleasant smell, or from mutton fat, which had an
unpleasant odor. The wheeled plough and iron-bladed plough made the
furrows. One man held the plough and another walked with the oxen,
coaxing them forward with a stick and shouts. Seeds were held in an
apron for seeding. Farm implements included spades, shovels, rakes,
hoes, buckets, barrels, flails, and sieves. Plants were pruned to
direct their growth and to increase their yield. Everyone got together
for feasts at key stages of the farming, such as the harvest. Easter
was the biggest feast. When the lord was in the field, his lady held
their estate. There were common lands of these estates as well as of
communities. Any proposed new settler had to be admitted at the court
of this estate.
The land of some lords included fishing villages along the
coasts. From the sea were caught herrings, salmon, porpoises, sturgeon,
oysters, crabs, mussels, cockles, winkles, plaice, flounder, and
lobsters. Sometimes whales were driven into an inlet by many boats.
River fish included eels, pike, minnows, burbot, trout, and lampreys.
They were caught by brushwood weirs, net, bait, hooks, and baskets.
Oysters were so numerous that they were eaten by the poor. The king's
peace extended over the waterways. If mills, fisheries, weirs, or other
structures were set up to block them, they were to be destroyed and a
penalty paid to the king.
Other lords had land with iron mining industries. Ore was dug
from the ground and combined with wood charcoal in a shaft furnace to
be smelted into liquid form. Wood charcoal was derived from controlled
charring of the wood at high temperatures without using oxygen. This
burned impurities from it and left a purer carbon, which burned better
than wood. The pure iron was extracted from this liquid and formed into
bars. To keep the fire hot, the furnaces were frequently placed at
windswept crossings of valleys or on the tops of hills.
Some lords had markets on their land, for which they charged a
toll for participation. There were about fifty markets in the nation.
Cattle and slaves (from the word "slav") were the usual medium of
exchange. An ox was still worth about 30d. Shaking hands was symbolic
of an agreement for a sale, which had to be carried out in front of
witnesses at the market for any property worth over 20d. The higher the
value of the property, the more witnesses were required. Witnesses were
also required for the exchange of property and to vouch for cattle
having being born on the property of a person claiming them. People
traveled to markets on deep, sunken roads and narrow bridges kept in
repair by certain men who did this work as their service to the King.
The king's peace extended to a couple of high roads, i.e. highways,
running the length of the country and a couple running its width.
Salt was used throughout the nation to preserve meat over the
winter. Inland saltworks had an elaborate and specialized organization.
The chief one used saltpans and furnaces to extract salt from natural
brine springs. They formed little manufacturing enclaves in the midst
of agricultural land, and they were considered to be neither large
private estates headed by a lord nor appurtenant to such. They belonged
jointly to the king and the local earl, who shared, at a proportion of
two to one, the proceeds of the tolls upon the sale of salt and methods
of carriage on the ancient salt ways according to cartload, horse load,
or man load. Sometimes there were investors in a portion of the works
who lived quite at distance away. The sales of salt were mostly retail,
but some bought to resell. Peddlers carried salt to sell from village
to village.
Some smiths traveled for their work, for instance, stonewrights
building arches and windows in churches, and lead workers putting lead
roofs on churches.
An example of a grant of hides of land is: "[God has endowed
King Edred with England], wherefore he enriches and honors men, both
ecclesiastic and lay, who can justly deserve it. The truth of this can
be acknowledged by the thegn AElfsige Hunlafing through his acquisition
of the estate of 5 hides at Alwalton for himself and his heirs, free
from every burden except the repair of fortifications, the building of
bridges and military service; a prudent landowner church dues, burial
fees and tithes. [This land] is to be held for all time and granted
along with the things both great and small belonging to it."
A Bishop gave land to a faithful attendant for his life and two
other lives as follows: "In 904 A.D., I, Bishop Werfrith, with the
permission and leave of my honorable community in Worcester, grant to
Wulfsige, my reeve, for his loyal efficiency and humble obedience, one
hide of land at Aston as Herred held it, that is, surrounded by a dyke,
for three lives and then after three lives the estate shall be given
back without any controversy to Worcester."
At seaports on the coast, goods were loaded onto vessels owned
by English merchants to be transported to other English seaports.
London was a market town on the north side of the Thames River and the
primary port and trading center for foreign merchants. Streets that
probably date from this time include Milk, Bread, and Wood Streets, and
Honey Lane. There were open air markets such as Billingsgate. There
were wooden quays over much of the river front. Houses were made of
wood, with one sunken floor, or a ground floor with a cellar beneath.
Some had central stone hearths and earth latrines. There were crude
pottery cooking pots, beakers and lamps, wool cloth, a little silk,
simple leather shoes, pewter jewelry, looms, and quernstones (for
grinding flour). Wool, skins, hides, wheat, meal, beer, lead, cheese,
salt, and honey were exported. Wine (mostly for the church), fish,
timber, pitch, pepper, garlic, spices, copper, gems, gold, silk, dyes,
oil, brass, sulphur, glass, slaves, and elephant and walrus ivory were
imported. Goods from the continent were sold at open stalls in certain
streets. Furs and slaves were traded. There was a royal levy on exports
by foreigners merchants. Southwark, across the Thames River from
London,was reachable by a bridge. Southwark contained sleazy docks,
prisons, gaming houses, and brothels.
Guilds in London were first associations of neighbors for the
purposes of mutual assistance. They were fraternities of persons by
voluntary compact to assist each other in poverty, including their
widows or orphans and the portioning of poor maids, and to protect each
other from injury. Their essential features are and continue to be in
the future: 1) oath of initiation, 2) entrance fee in money or in kind
and a common fund, 3) annual feast and mass, 4) meetings at least three
times yearly for guild business, 5) obligation to attend all funerals
of members, to bear the body if need be from a distance, and to provide
masses for the dead, 6) the duty of friendly help in cases of sickness,
imprisonment, house burning, shipwreck, or robbery, 7) rules for decent
behavior at meetings, and 8) provisions for settling disputes without
recourse to the law. Both the masses and the feast were attended by the
women. Frequently the guilds also had a religious ceremonial to affirm
their bonds of fidelity. They readily became connected with the
exercise of trades and with the training of apprentices. They promoted
and took on public purposes such as the repairing of roads and bridges,
the relief of pilgrims, the maintenance of schools and almshouses, and
the periodic performance of pageants and miracle plays telling
scriptural history, which could last for several days. The devil often
was prominent in miracle plays.
Many of these London guilds were known by the name of their
founding member. There were also Frith Guilds (peace guilds) and a
Knights' Guild. The Frith Guild's main object was to enforce the King's
laws, especially the prevalent problem of theft. They were especially
established by bishops and reeves. Members met monthly and contributed
about 4d. to a common fund, which paid a compensation for items stolen.
They each paid 1s. towards the pursuit of the thief. The members were
grouped in tens. Members with horses were to track the thief. Members
without horses worked in the place of the absent horse owners until
their return. When caught, the thief was tried and executed.
Overwhelming force was used if his kindred tried to protect him. His
property was used to compensate the victim for his loss and then
divided between the thief's wife, if she was innocent, the King, and
the guild. Owners of slaves paid into a fund to give one half
compensation to those who lost slaves by theft or escape, and
recaptured slaves were to be stoned to death or hanged. The members of
the peace guild also feasted and drank together. When one died, the
others each sang a song or paid for the singing of fifty psalms for his
soul and gave a loaf.
The Knights' Guild was composed of thirteen military persons to
whom King Edgar granted certain waste land in the east of London,
toward Aldgate, and also Portsoken, which ran outside the eastern wall
of the city to the Thames, for prescribed services performed, probably
defense of the vulnerable east side of the city. This concession was
confirmed by King Edward the Confessor in a charter at the suit of
certain citizens of London, the successors of these knights. Edward
granted them sake and soke, the right to hold a court for the offender
and to receive the profits of jurisdiction, over their men.
Edward the Confessor made these rules for London:
1. Be it known that within the space of three miles from all parts
outside of the city a man ought not to hold or hinder another, and also
should not do business with him if he wish to come to the city under
its peace. But when he arrives in the city, then let the market be the
same to the rich man as to the poor.
2. Be it also known that a man who is from the court of the king or the
barons ought not to lodge in the house of any citizen of London for
three nights, either by privilege or by custom, except by consent of
the host. For if he force the host to lodge him in his house and there
be killed by the host, let the host choose six from his relatives and
let him as the seventh swear that he killed him for the said cause. And
thus he will remain quit of the murder of the - - deceased towards the
king and relatives and lords of the deceased.
3. And after he has entered the city, let a foreign merchant be lodged
wherever it please him. But if he bring dyed cloth, let him see to it
that he does not sell his merchandise at retail, but that he sell not
less than a dozen pieces at a time. And if he bring pepper, or cumin,
or ginger, or alum, or brasil wood, or resin, or incense, let him sell
not less than fifteen pounds at a time. But if he bring belts, let him
sell not less than a thousand at a - - time. And if he bring cloths of
silk, or wool or linen, let him see that he cut them not, but sell them
whole. But if he bring wax, let him sell not less than one quartanum.
Also a foreign merchant may not buy dyed cloth, nor make the dye in the
city, nor do any work which belongs by right to the citizens.
4. Also no foreign merchant with his partner may set up any market
within the city for reselling goods in the city, nor may he approach a
citizen for making a bargain, nor may he stop longer in the City.
Every week in London there was a folkmote at St. Paul's
churchyard, where majority decision was a tradition. By 1032, it had
lost much of its power to the husting [household assembly in Danish]
court. The folkmote then had responsibility for order and was the sole
authority for proclaiming outlaws. It met three times a year at St.
Paul's churchyard and there acclaimed its sheriff and its justiciar, or
if the king had chosen his officer, heard who was chosen and listened
to his charge. It also yearly arranged the watch and dealt with risks
of fire. It was divided into wards, each governed by an alderman who
presided over the wardmote, and represented his ward at the folkmote.
Each guild became a ward. The chief alderman was the portreeve. London
paid one-eighth of all the taxes of England.
Later in the towns, merchant guilds grew out of charity
associations whose members were bound by oath to each other and got
together for a guild feast every month. Some traders of these merchant
guilds became so prosperous that they became landholders. Many market
places were dominated by a merchant guild, which had a monopoly of the
local trade. In the great mercantile towns all the land and houses
would be held by merchants and their dependents, all freeholders were
connected with a trade, and everyone who had a claim on public office
or magistry would be a member of the guild. The merchant guild could
admit into their guild country villeins, who became freemen if
unclaimed by their lords for a year and a day. Every merchant who had
made three long voyages on his own behalf and at his own cost ranked as
a thegn. There were also some craft guilds composed of handicraftsmen
or artisans. Escaped bonded agricultural workers, poor people, and
traders without land migrated to towns to live, but were not citizens.
Towns were largely self-sufficient, but salt and iron came from
a distance. The King's established in every shire at least one town
with a market place where purchases would be witnessed, and a mint
where reliable money was coined by a moneyer, who put his name on his
coins. There were eight moneyers in London. Coins were issued to be of
value for only a couple of years. Then one had to exchange them for
newly issued ones at a rate of about 10 old for 8 or 9 new. The
difference constituted a tax. Roughly 10% of the people lived in towns.
Some took surnames such as Tanner, Weaver, or Carpenter. Some had
affectionate or derisive nicknames such as clear-hand, fresh friend,
soft bread, foul beard, money taker, or penny purse. Craftsmen in the
1000s included goldsmiths, embroiderers, illuminators of manuscripts,
and armorers.
Edward the Confessor, named such for his piety, was a king of
24 years who was widely respected for his intelligence,
resourcefulness, good judgment, and wisdom. His educated Queen Edith,
whom he relied on for advice and cheerful courage, was a stabilizing
influence on him. They were served by a number of thegns, who had
duties in the household, which was composed of the hall, the courtyard,
and the bedchamber. They were important men - thegns by rank. They were
landholders, often in several areas, and held leading positions in the
shires. They were also priests and clerics, who maintained the
religious services and performed tasks for which literacy was
necessary. Edward was the first king to have a "Chancellor", who was
the first great officer of state. He kept a royal seal and was the
chief royal chaplain. He did all the secretarial work of the household
and court, drew up and sealed the royal writs, conducted the king's
correspondence, and kept all the royal accounts. The word "chancellor"
signified a screen behind which the secretarial work of the household
was done. He had the special duty of securing and administering the
royal revenue from vacant benefices. The second great office was that
of Treasurer, who headed the Exchequer. The most important royal
officers were the chamberlains, who took care of the royal bedchamber
and adjoining wardrobe used for dressing and storage of valuables, and
the priests. These royal officers had at first been responsible only
for domestic duties, but gradually came to assume public administrative
tasks.
Edward wanted to avoid the pressures and dangers of living in
the rich and powerful City of London. So he rebuilt a monastic church,
an abbey, and a palace at Westminster about two miles upstream. He
started the growth of Westminster as a center of royal and political
power; kings' councils met there. Royal coronations took place at the
abbey. Since Edward traveled a lot, he established a
storehouse-treasury at Winchester to supplement his traveling wardrobe.
At this time, Spanish stallions were imported to improve English
horses. London came to have the largest and best trained army in
England.
The court invited many of the greatest magnates and prelates
[highest ecclesiastical officials, such as bishops] of the land to the
great ecclesiastical festivals, when the king held more solemn courts
and feasted with his vassals for several days. These included all the
great earls, the majority of bishops, some abbots, and a number of
thegns and clerics. Edward had a witan of wise men to advise him, but
sometimes the King would speak in the hall after dinner and listen to
what comments were made from the mead-benches. As the court moved about
the country, many men came to pay their respects and attend to local
business. Edward started the practice of King's touching people to cure
them of scrofula, a disease which affected the glands, especially in
the head and neck. It was done in the context of a religious ceremony.
The main governmental activities were: war, collection of
revenue, religious education, and administration of justice. For war,
the shires had to provide a certain number of men and the ports quotas
of ships with crews. The king was the patron of the English church. He
gave the church peace and protection. He presided over church councils
and appointed bishops. As for the administration of justice, the public
courts were almost all under members of Edward's court, bishops, earls,
and reeves. Edward's mind was often troubled and disturbed by the
threat that law and justice would be overthrown, by the pervasiveness
of disputes and discord, by the raging of wicked presumption, by money
interfering with right and justice, and by avarice kindling all of
these. He saw it as his duty to courageously oppose the wicked by
taking good men as models, by enriching the churches of God, by
relieving those oppressed by wicked judges, and by judging equitably
between the powerful and the humble. He was so greatly revered that a
comet was thought to accompany his death.
The king established the office of the Chancery to draft
documents and keep records. It created the writ, which was a small
piece of parchment [sheep skin] addressed to a royal official or
dependent commanding him to perform some task for the King. By the
1000s A.D., the writ contained a seal: a lump of wax with the impress
of the Great Seal of England which hung from the bottom of the
document. Writing was done with a sharpened goose-wing quill. Ink was
obtained from mixing fluid from the galls made by wasps for their eggs
on oak trees, rainwater or vinegar, gum arabic, and iron salts for
color.
A King's grant of land entailed two documents: a charter giving
boundaries and conditions and a writ, usually addressed to the shire
court, listing the judicial and financial privileges conveyed with the
land. These were usually sac [jurisdiction of a lord to hold court and
to impose fines and amercements] and soke [jurisdiction of a private
court of a noble or institution to execute the laws and administer
justice over inhabitants and tenants of the estate], toll [right to
have a market and to collect a payment on the sale of cattle and other
property on one's own estate] and team [a privilege granted by royal
charter to the lord of a manor for the having, restraining, and judging
of villeins with their children, goods, and chattels], and
infangenetheof [the authority to hang and take the chattels of a thief
caught on his estate].
The town of Coventry consisted of a large monastery estate,
headed by an abbot, and a large private estate headed by a lord. The
monastery was granted by Edward the Confessor full freedom and these
jurisdictions: sac and soke, toll and team, hamsocne [the authority to
fine a person for breaking into and making entry by force into the
dwelling of another], forestall [the authority to fine a person for
robbing others on the road], bloodwite [the authority to impose a
forfeiture for assault involving bloodshed], fightwite [the authority
to fine for fighting], weordwite [the authority to fine for
manslaughter, but not for willful murder], and mundbryce [the authority
to fine for any breach of the peace, such as trespass on lands].
Every man was expected to have a lord to whom he gave fealty.
He swore by a fealty oath such as: "By the Lord, before whom this relic
is holy, I will be to faithful and true, and love all that he loves,
and shun all that he shuns, according to God's law, and according to
the world's principle, and never, by will nor by force, by word nor by
work, do ought of what is loathful to him; on condition that he keep me
as I am willing to deserve, and all that fulfill that our agreement
was, when I to him submitted and chose his will." If a man was homeless
or lordless, his brothers were expected to find him such, e.g. in the
folkmote. Otherwise, he was to be treated as a fugitive and could be
slain, and anyone who had harbored him would pay a penalty. Brothers
were also expected to protect their minor kinsmen. When the oath of
fealty was sworn, the man usually did homage to this lord symbolized by
holding his hands together between those of his lord.
Marriages were determined by men asking women to marry them. If
a woman said yes, he paid a sum to her kin for her "mund" [jurisdiction
or protection over her] and gave his oath to them to maintain and
support the woman and any children born. As security for this oath, he
gave a valuable object or "wed". The couple were then betrothed.
Marriage ceremonies were performed by priests in churches. The groom
had to bring friends to his wedding as sureties to guarantee his oath
to maintain and support his wife and children. Those who swore to take
care of the children were called their "godfathers". The marriage was
written into church records. After witnessing the wedding, friends ate
the great loaf, or first bread made by the bride. This was the
forerunner of the wedding cake. They drank special ale, the "bride ale"
(from hence the work "bridal"), to the health of the couple.
Women could own land, houses, and furniture and other property.
They could even make wills that disinherited their sons. This marriage
agreement with an Archbishop's sister provides her with land, money,
and horsemen:
"Here in this document is stated the agreement which Wulfric
and the archbishop made when he obtained the archbishop's sister as his
wife, namely he promised her the estates at Orleton and Ribbesford for
her lifetime, and promised her that he would obtain the estate at
Knightwick for her for three lives from the community at Winchcombe,
and gave her the estate at Alton to grant and bestow upon whomsoever
she pleased during her lifetime or at her death, as she preferred, and
promised her 50 mancuses of gold and 30 men and 30 horses.
The witnesses that this agreement was made as stated were Archbishop
Wulfstan and Earl Leofwine and Bishop AEthelstan and Abbot AElfweard
and the monk Brihtheah and many good men in addition to them, both
ecclesiastics and laymen. There are two copies of this agreement, one
in the possession of the archbishop at Worcester and the other in the
possession of Bishop AEthelstan at Hereford."
This marriage agreement provided the wife with money, land,
farm animals and farm laborers; it also names sureties, the survivor of
whom would receive all this property:
"Here is declared in this document the agreement which Godwine made
with Brihtric when he wooed his daughter. In the first place he gave
her a pound's weight of gold, to induce her to accept his suit, and he
granted her the estate at Street with all that belongs to it, and 150
acres at Burmarsh and in addition 30 oxen and 20 cows and 10 horses and
10 slaves.
This agreement was made at Kingston before King Cnut, with the
cognizance of Archbishop Lyfing and the community at Christchurch, and
Abbot AElfmaer and the community at St. Augustine's, and the sheriff
AEthelwine and Sired the old and Godwine, Wulfheah's son, and AElfsige
cild and Eadmaer of Burham and Godwine, Wulfstan's son, and Carl, the
King's cniht. And when the maiden was brought from Brightling AElfgar,
Sired's son, and Frerth, the priest of Forlstone, and the priests
Leofwine and Wulfsige from Dover, and Edred, Eadhelm's son, and
Leofwine, Waerhelm's son, and Cenwold rust and Leofwine, son of Godwine
of Horton, and Leofwine the Red and Godwine, Eadgifu's son, and
Leofsunu his brother acted as security for all this. And whichever of
them lives the longer shall succeed to all the property both in land
and everything else which I have given them. Every trustworthy man in
Kent and Sussex, whether thegn or commoner, is cognizant of these terms.
There are three of these documents; one is at Christchurch, another at
St. Augustine's, and Brihtric himself has the third."
Nuns and monks lived in segregated nunneries and monasteries on
church land and grew their own food. The local bishop usually was also
an abbot of a monastery. The priests and nuns wore long robes with
loose belts and did not carry weapons. Their life was ordered by the
ringing of the bell to start certain activities, such as prayer; meals;
meetings; work in the fields, gardens, or workshops; and copying and
illuminating books. They chanted to pay homage and to communicate with
God or his saints. They taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and
charity; and cared for the sick. Caring for the sick entailed mostly
praying to God as it was thought that only God could cure. They bathed
a few times a year. They got their drinking water from upstream of
where they had located their latrines over running water. The large
monasteries had libraries, dormitories, guesthouses, kitchens,
butteries to store wine, bakehouses, breweries, dairies, granaries,
barns, fishponds, orchards, vineyards, gardens, workshops, laundries,
lavatories with long stone or marble washing troughs, and towels.
Slavery was diminished by the church by excommunication for the sale of
a child over seven. The clergy taught that manumission of slaves was
good for the soul of the dead, so it became frequent in wills. The
clergy were to abstain from red meat and wine and were to be celibate.
But there were periods of laxity. Punishment was by the cane or scourge.
The Archbishop of Canterbury began anointing new kings at the
time of coronation to emphasize that the king was ruler by the grace of
God. As God's minister, the king could only do right. From 973, the new
king swore to protect the Christian church, to prevent inequities to
all subjects, and to render good justice, which became a standard oath.
It was believed that there was a celestial hierarchy, with
heavenly hosts in specific places. The heavenly bodies revolved in
circles around the earthly world on crystal spheres of their own, which
were serene, harmonious, and eternal. This contrasted with the change,
death, and decay that occurred in the earthly world. Also in this
world, Aristotle's four elements of earth, air, fire, and water sought
their natural places, e.g. bubbles of air rising through water. The
planets were called wanderers because their motion did not fit the
circular scheme.
God intervened in daily life, especially if worshipped. Jesus
Christ, his mother the Virgin Mary and saints were also worshipped.
Saints such as Bede and Hilda performed miracles, especially ones of
curing. Their spirits could be contacted through their relics, which
rested at the altars of churches. Sin resulted in misfortune. When
someone was said to have the devil in him, people took it quite
literally. Omens fortold events. A real Jack Frost nipped noses and
fingers and made the ground too hard to work. Little people, elves,
trolls, and fairies inhabited the fears and imaginings of people. The
forest was the mysterious home of spirits. People prayed to God to help
them in their troubles and from the work of the devil. Prayer was often
a charm to conjure up friendly spirits rather than an act of
supplication. Sorcerers controlled the forces of nature with the aid of
spirits. Since natural causes of events were unknown, people attributed
events to wills like their own. Illness and disease were thought to be
caused by demons and witches. To cure illness, people hung charms
around their neck and went to good witches for treatments of magic and
herbs. For instance, the remedy for "mental vacancy and folly" was a
drink of "fennel, agrimony, cockle, and marche".Some herbs had
hallucinogenic effects, which were probably useful for pain. Blood-
letting by leeches and cautery were used for most maladies, which were
thought to be caused by imbalance of the four bodily humors: sanguine,
phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. These four humors reflected the
four basic elements air, water, fire, and earth. Blood was hot and
moist like air; phlegm was cold and moist like water; choler or yellow
bile was hot and dry like fire; and melancholy or black bile was cold
and dry like earth. Bede had explained that when blood predominates, it
makes people joyful, glad, sociable, laughing, and talking a great
deal. Phlegm renders them slow, sleepy, and forgetful. Red cholic makes
them thin, though eating much, swift, bold, wrathful, and agile. Black
cholic makes them serious of settled disposition, even sad. To relieve
brain pressure and/or maybe to exorcise evil spirits, holes were made
in skulls by a drill with a metal tip that was caused to turn back and
forth by a strap wrapped around a wooden handle. A king's daughter
Edith inspired a cult of holy wells, whose waters were thought to
alleviate eye conditions. Warmth and rest were also used for illness.
Agrimony boiled in milk was thought to relieve impotence in men.
It was known that the liver casted out impurities in the blood.
The stages of fetal growth were known. The soul was not thought to
enter a fetus until after the third month, so presumably abortions
within three months were allowable.
The days of the week were Sun day, Moon day, Tiw's day (Viking
god of war), Woden's day (Viking god of victory, master magician,
calmer of storms, and raiser of the dead), Thor's day (Viking god of
thunder), Frig's day (Viking goddess of fertility and growing things),
and Saturn's day (Roman god). Special days of the year were celebrated:
Christmas, the birthday of Jesus Christ; the twelve days of Yuletide (a
Viking tradition) when candles were lit and houses decorated with
evergreen and there were festivities around the burning of the biggest
log available; Plough Monday for resumption of work after Yuletide;
February 14th with a feast celebrating Saint Valentinus, a Roman bishop
martyr who had married young lovers in secret when marriage was
forbidden to encourage men to fight in war; New Year's Day on March
25th when seed was sown and people banged on drums and blew horns to
banish spirits who destroy crops with disease; Easter, the day of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ; Whitsunday, celebrating the descent of
the Holy Spirit on the apostles of Jesus and named for the white worn
by baptismal candidates; May Day when flowers and greenery was gathered
from the woods to decorate houses and churches, Morris dancers leapt
through their villages with bells, hobby horses, and waving scarves,
and people danced around a May pole holding colorful ribbons tied at
the top so they became entwined around the pole; Lammas on August 1st,
when the first bread baked from the wheat harvest was consecrated;
Harvest Home when the last harvest load was brought home while an
effigy of a goddess was carried with reapers singing and piping behind,
and October 31st, the eve of the Christian designated All Hallow Day,
which then became known as All Hallow Even, or Halloween. People
dressed as demons, hobgoblins, and witches to keep spirits away from
possessing them. Trick or treating began with Christian beggars asking
for "soul cake" biscuits in return for praying for dead relatives.
Ticktacktoe and backgammon were played.
The languages of invaders had produced a hybrid language that
was roughly understood throughout the country. The existence of Europe,
Africa, Asia, and India were known. Jerusalem was thought to be at the
center of the world. There was an annual tax of a penny on every
hearth, Peter's pence, to be collected and sent to the pope in Rome
yearly. Ecclesiastical benefices were to pay church-scot, a payment in
lieu of first fruits of the land, to the pope.
The Law
There were several kings in this period. The king and witan
deliberated on the making of new laws, both secular and spiritual, at
the regularly held witanagemot. There was a standard legal requirement
of holding every man accountable, though expressed in different ways,
such as the following three:
Every freeman who does not hold land must find a lord to answer
for him. Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for the
men of his household. [This included female lords.] (King Athelstan)
"And every man shall see that he has a surety, and this surety
shall bring and keep him to [the performance of] every lawful duty.
1. -And if anyone does wrong and escapes, his surety shall incur what
the other should have incurred.
2. -If the case be that of a thief and his surety can lay hold of him
within twelve months, he shall deliver him up to justice, and what he
has paid shall be returned to him." (King Edgar)
Every freeman who holds land, except lords with considerable
landed property, must be in a local tithing, usually ten to twelve men,
in which they serve as personal sureties for each other's peaceful
behavior. If one of the ten landholders in a tithing is accused of an
offense, the others have to produce him in court or pay a fine plus pay
the injured party for the offense, unless they could prove that they
had no complicity in it. If the man is found guilty but can not pay,
his tithing must pay his fine. The chief officer is the "tithing man"
or "capital pledge". There were probably ten tithings in a hundred.
(King Edward the Confessor).
Canute reigned from 1016 to 1035. The following are substantially all
the laws of Canute with an * before ones of special interest.
Proclamations of Canute are:
All my reeves, under pain of forfeiting my friendship and all that they
possess and their own lives, shall govern my people justly everywhere,
and to pronounce just judgments with the cognizance of the bishops of
the dioceses, and to inflict such mitigated penalties as the bishop may
approve and the man himself may be able to bear.
I enjoin upon all the sheriffs and reeves throughout my kingdom that,
as they desire to retain my friendship and their own sercurity, they
employ no unjust force towards any man, either rich or poor, but that
all, both nobles and commoners, rich and poor, shall have their right
of just possession, which shall not be infringed upon in any way,
either for the sake of obtaining the favour of the king or of
gratifying any powerful person or of collecting money for me; and I
have no need that monoey should be collected for me by any unust
exactions.
Ecclesiastical laws of Canute are:
Above all else, love and honour one God, and uphold one Christian
faith, and love King Canute with due fidlity.
*Maintain the security and sanctity of the churches of God, and
frequently attend them for the salvation of our souls and our own
benefit. He who violates the protection given by the church of God
within its walls, or the protection granted by a Christian king in
person shall lose both land and life, unless the king is willing to
pardon him. Homicide within the church's walls shall not be
atoned for by any payment of compensation, and everyone shall pursue
the miscreant, unless it happen that he escapes from there and reaches
so inviolable a sanctuary that the king, because of that, grants him
his life, upon condition that he makes full amends both towards God and
towards men. The first conditon is that he shall give his own wergeld
to Christ and to the king and by that means obtain the legal right to
offer compensation. And if the king allows compensation, amends for the
violation of the protection of the church shall be made by the payment
to the church of the full fine for breach of the king's mund, and the
purification of the church shall be carried out as is fiting, and
compensation both to the kin and to the lord of the slain man shall be
fully psid, and supplication shall earnestly be made to God. If the
protection of the church is broken by offenses such as fighting or
robbery, without the taking of life, amends shall diligently be made in
accordance with the nature of the offense. The penalty for violation of
the protection of a principal church is 5 pounds, for a church of
medium rank is 120s., for a church with a graveyard 60s., and for a
country chapel where there is no graveyard, 30s.
Maintain the security and sanctity of holy things and priests according
to their rank, for they drive away devils, baptize anyone, hallow the
Eucharist, and intercede to Christ for the needs of the people. If an
accusation of evil practices is made against a priest and he knows
himself to be guiltless, he shall say Mass, if he dares, and thus clear
himelf by the Holy Communion in the cases of a simple accusation, and
by the Holy Communion with two supporters of the same ecclesiastical
rank in the case of a triple accusation. If he has no supporters, he
shall go to the ordeal of consecrated bread.
No monk who belongs to a monastery may demand or pay compensation
incurred by vendetta because he leaves the law of his kindred behind
when he accepts monastic rule.
If a priest is concerned in false witness or perjury or is the
accessory and accomplice of thieves, he shall be cast out from the
fellowship of those in holy orders and forfeit every privilege, unless
he make amends both towards God and towards men, as the bishop shall
prescribe, and find surtey for future behavior.
Servants of God shall call upon Christ to intercede for all Christian
people and practice celibacy. Those who turn away from marriage and
observe celibacy shall enjoy the privileges of a thegn.
*No Christian man shall marry among his own kin within six degress of
relationship or with the widow of a man as nearly related to him as
that, or with a near relative of his first wife's. No man shall marry
his god-mother, a nun, or a divorced woman. He shall not commit
adultery. He shall have no more wives that one, with whom he shall
remain as long as she lives.
Ecclesiastical dues shall be paid yearly, namely, plough alms 15 days
after Easter, the tithe [tenth] of young animals at Pentecost, and the
tithe of the fruits of the earth at All Saints. Otherwise the king's
reeve, the bishop's reeve, and the lord's reeve shall take what is due
and assign him the next tenth, and the eight remaining parts shall go
half to the lord and half to the bishop.
Peter's Pence shall be paid by St. Peter's Day or pay the bishop the
penny and 30d. in addition and 120s. to the king.
Church dues shall be paid at Martinmas, or pay the biship eleven fold
and 120s. to the king.
Any thegn with a church with attached graveyard on his land shall give
a third part of his own tithes to his church. If he has a church
without a graveyard, he shall give his priest whatever he desires from
the nine remaining parts.
Light dues shall be paid a halfpenny worth of wax from every hide three
times a year.
Payment for the souls of the dead should be rendered before the grave
is closed.
*All festivals and fasts, such as Lent, shall be observed. The festival
of every Sunday shall be observed from noon on Saturday till dawn on
Monday. No trading, public gatherings, hunting, or secular occupations
shall be done on Sunday. We forbid ordeals and oaths during festivals
and fasts.
To avoid the torment of hell, let us turn away from sin and confess our
misdeeds to out confessors and cease from evil and make amends.
Each of us shall treat others as we desire to be treated.
Every Christian man shall prepare himself for the sacrament at least
three times a year. Every friend shall abide by his oath and pledge.
Every injustice shall be cast out from this land.
Let us be faithful and true to our lord and promote his honour and
carry out his will. And likewise, it is the duty of every lord to treat
his men justly.
Men of every estate shall readily submit to the duty which befits them.
Every Christian man shall learn the Creed and the Pater Noster, the
sacred prayer taught by Christ to his disciples which contains all the
petitions necessary for this life and the life to come. He who does not
learn it may not sponsor another man at baptism or at confirmation.
*Guard against grievous sins and devilish deeds and make amends
according to one's confessor's advice.
Fear God, be in terror of sin, and dread the Day of Judgment.
The bishops shall give example of our duty towards God.
Secular laws of Canute are:
All men, both rich and poor, shall be entitled to the benefit of the
law, and just decisions shall be pronounced on their behalf.
Those in authority to give judgment shall consider very earnestly "And
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."
Christian people shall not be condemned to death for trivial offenses.
We forbid the all too prevalent practice of selling Christian people
out of the country, especially into heathen lands. Care shall be taken
that the souls which Christ bought with his own life be not destroyed.
*Any wizards or sorcerers, those who secretly compass death,
prostitutes, thieves, and robbers shall be destroyed unless they cease
and make amends.
We forbid heathen practices, namely the worship of idols, heathen gods,
and the sun or moon, fire or water, springs or stones or any kind of
forest trees, or indulgence in witchcraft or the compassing of death in
any way, either by sacrifice or by divinations or by the practice of
any such delusions.
*Murderers and perjurers, injurers of the clergy, and adulterers shall
submit and make amends or depart with their sins from their native land.
*Hypocrites and liars, robbers and plunderers shall incur the wrath of
God, unless they desist and make amends.
*There shall be one currency free from all adulteration throughout the
land and no one shall refuse it. He who coins false money shall forfeit
the hand with which he made it, and he shall not redeem it in any way,
either with gold or silver. If the reeve is accused of having granted
his permission to the man who coined the false money, he shall clear
himself by the triple oath of exculpation and, if it fails, he shall
have the same sentence as the man who coined the false money.
*Measures and weights shall be diligently corrected and an end put to
all unjust practices.
The repair of fortifications and bridges, and the preparation of ships
and the equipment of military forces shall be diligently undertaken for
the common need, whenever the occasion arises.
*In Wessex and Mercia, the king is entitled to payments for violation
of his mund, attacks on people's houses, assault, and neglecting
military service. In the Danelaw, he is entitled to payments for
fighting, breach of the peace and attacks on people's houses, and
neglect of military service.
*If anyone does the deed of an outlaw, the king alone shall have power
to grant him security. He shall forfeit all his land to the king
without regard to whose vassal he is. Whoever feeds or harbours the
fugitive shall pay 5 pounds to the king, unless he clears himself by a
declaration that he did not know that he was a fugitive.
*He who promotes injustice or pronounces unjust judgments, as a result
of malice or bribery, shall forfeit 120s. to the king, in districts
under English law, unless he declares on oath that he did not know how
to give a more just verdict, and he shall lose forever his rank as a
thegn, unless he redeem it from the king, provided the latter is
willing to allow him to do so. In the Danelaw he shall forfeit his
lahslit.
*He who refuses to observe just laws and judgments shall forfeit, in
districts under English law, a fine to the party entitled thereto -
either 120s. to the king, 60s. to the earl, or 30s. to the hundred, or
to all of them if they were all concerned.
*If a man seeks to accuse another man falsely in such a way as to
injure him in property or in reputation, and if the latter can refute
the accusation brought against him, the first shall forfeit his tongue,
unless he redeems himself with his wergeld.
No one shall appeal to the king, unless he fails to obtain justice
within his hundred. Everyone shall attend the hundred court, under pain
of fine, whenever he is required by law to attend it.
The borough court shall be held at least three times and the shire
court at least twice, under pain of fine. The bishop of the diocese and
the earldorman shall attend and they shall direct the administration of
both ecclesiastical and secular law.
*No one shall make distraint [seizure of personal property out of the
possession of an alleged wrongdoer into the custody of the party
injured, to procure a satisfaction for a wrong committed] of property
either within the shire or outside it, until he has appealed for
justice three times in the hundred court. If on the third occasion he
does not obtain justice, he shall go on the fourth occasion to the
shire court, and the shire court shall appoint a day when he shall
issue his summons for the fourth time. And if this summons fails, he
shall get leave from the one court or the other, to take his own
measures for the recovery of his property.
*Every freeman over age 12 must be in a tithing if he desires to have
the right of exculpation and of being atoned for by the payment of his
wergeld, if he is slain, and to be entitled to the rights of a freeman,
whether he has an establishment of his own or is in the service of
another. Everyone shall be brought within a hundred and under surety,
and his surety shall hold and bring him to the performance of every
legal duty.
*Everyone over age 12 shall take an oath that he will not be a thief or
a thief's accomplice.
Every trustworthy man, who has never earned a bad reputation and who
has never failed either in oath or in ordeal, shall be entitled to
clear himself within the hundred by the simple oath of exculpation. For
an untrustworthy man compurgators for the simple oath shall be selected
within three hundreds, and for the triple oath, throughout the district
under the jurisdiction of the borough court; otherwise he shall go to
the ordeal. When a simple oath of exculpation is involved, the case
shall be begun with a simple oath of accusation; but where a triple
oath of exculpation is involved, it shall be begun with a triple oath
of accusation. A thegn may have a trustworthy man give his oath of
accusation for him.
No man may vouch to warranty unless he has three trustworthy witnesses
to declare whence he acquired the stock which is attached in his
possession. The witnesses shall declare that, in bearing testimony on
his behalf to the effect that he acquired it legally, they are speaking
the truth, in accordance with what they saw with their eyes and heard
with their ears.
*No one shall buy anything over 4d. in value, either livestock or other
property, unless he has four men as trustworthy witnesses, whether the
purchase be made within a town or in the open country. If, however, any
property is attached, and he who is in possession of it has no such
witnesses, no vouching to warranty shall be allowed, but the property
shall be given up to its rightful owner and also the supplementary
payment, and the fine to the party who is entitled thereto. And if he
has witnesses in accordance with what we have declared above, vouching
to warranty shall take place three times. On the fourth occasion he
shall prove his claim to it or give it back to its rightful owner. No
one shall claim ownership where fraud is involved.
*If anyone who is of bad reputation and unworthy of public confidence
fails to attend the court meetings three times, men shall be chosen
from the fourth meeting who shall ride to him, and he may then still
find a surety, if he can. If he cannot, they shall seize him either
alive or dead, and they shall take all that he has. And they shall pay
to the accuser the value of his goods, and the lord shall take half of
what remains and the hundred half. And if anyone, either kinsman or
stranger, refuses to ride against him, he shall pay the king 120s.
*The proved thief and he who has been discovered in treason against his
lord, whatever sanctuary he seeks, shall never be able to save his life.
He who in court tries to protect himself or one of his men by bringing
a countercharge shall have wasted his words, and shall meet the charge
brought by his opponent in such a way as the hundred court shall
determine.
No one shall entertain any man for more than three days, unless he is
committed to this charge by the man whom he has been serving. And no
one shall dismiss one of his men from his service until he is quit of
every accusation which has been brought against him.
*If anyone comes upon a thief and of his own accord lets him escape
without raising the hue and cry, he shall make compensation by the
payment of the thief's wergeld, or clear himself with the full oath,
asserting that he did not know him to be guilty of any crime. And if
anyone hears the hue and cry and neglects it, he shall pay the full
fine for insubordination [120s] to the king, or clear himself by the
full oath.
*Regarding thoroughly untrustworthy men, if anyone has forfeited the
confidence of the hundred, and he has charges brought against him to
such an extent that he is accused by three men at once, no other course
shall be open to him but to go to the triple ordeal. If, however, his
lord asserts that he has failed neither in oath nor in ordeal since the
assembly was held at Winchester, the lord shall choose two trustworthy
men within the hundred - unless he has a reeve who is qualified to
discharge this duty - and they shall swear that he has never failed in
oath or ordeal or been convicted of stealing. If the oath is
forthcoming, the man who is accused there shall choose whichever he
will - either the simple ordeal or an oath equivalent to a pound in
value, supported by compurgators found within the three hundreds, in
the case of an object over 30d. in value. If they dare not give the
oath, the accused shall go to the triple ordeal, which shall be opened
by five compurgators selected by the accuser and he himself shall make
a sixth. If the accused is proved guilty, on the first occasion he
shall pay double value to the accuser and his wergeld to the lord who
is entitled to receive his fine, and he shall appoint trustworthy
sureties, that hence forth he will desist from all wrong-doing. And on
the second occasion, if he is proved guilty, there shall be no
compensation but to have his hands or his feet cut off or both,
according to the nature of the offense. And if has wrought still
greater crime, he shall have his eyes put out and his nose and ears and
upper lip cut off or his scalp removed, whichever of these penalties is
determined by those with whom rests the decision of the case; and thus
punishment shall be inflicted, while, at the same time, the soul is
preserved from injury. If, however, he escapes and avoids the ordeal,
his surety shall pay the value of his goods to the plaintiff and the
wergeld of the accused to the king or to the man who is entitled to
receive his wergeld. And if the lord is accused of advising the man who
had done wrong to escape, he shall choose five trustworthy men, and
shall himself make a sixth, and shall clear himself of the accusation.
If he succeeds in clearing himself, he shall be entitled to the
wergeld. And if he fails, the king shall take the wergeld, and the
thief shall be treated as an outlaw by the whole nation.
Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for the men of his
own household. And if any accusation is brought against one of them, he
shall answer if within the hundred in which he is accused. And if he is
accused and escapes, the lord shall pay the man's wergeld to the king.
And if the lord is accused of advising him to escape, he shall clear
himself with the help of five thegns, himself making a sixth. And if he
fails to clear himself, he shall pay his own wergeld to the king, and
the man shall be an outlaw towards the king.
If a slave is found guilty at the ordeal, he shall be branded on the
first occasion. And on the second occasion, he shall not be able to
make any amends except by his head.
*Concerning untrustworthy men, if there is anyone who is regarded with
suspicion by the general public, the king's reeve shall go and place
him under surety so that he a may be brought to do justice to those who
have made charges against him. If he has no surety, he shall be slain
and buried in unconsecrated ground. And if anyone interposes in his
defense, they shall both incur the same punishment. And he who ignores
this and will not further what we have all determined upon shall pay
120s. to the king.
The various boroughs shall have one common law with regard to
exculpation.
If a friendless man or one come from afar is so utterly destitute of
friends as not to be able to produce a surety, on the first occasion
that he is accused he shall go to prison, and wait there until he goes
to God's ordeal where he shall experience whatever he can. Verily, he
who pronounces a more severe judgment upon whom is friendless or come
from afar than upon one of his own acquaintances injures himself.
*Concerning perjury, if anyone swears a false oath on the relics and is
convicted, he shall lose his hand or half his wergeld which shall be
divided between the lord and the bishop. And henceforth he shall not be
entitled to swear an oath, unless he makes amends to the best of his
ability before God, and finds surety that ever afterwards he will
desist from such perjury.
*Concerning false witness, if anyone has given testimony which is
manifestly false, and is convicted thereof, his testimony henceforth
shall be valueless, and he shall pay to the king or to the lord of the
manor a sum equivalent to his healsfang [payment due only to those very
closely related to a killed man].
Special care must be taken to prevent lawlessness at sacred seasons and
in sacred places. The greater a man is and the higher his rank, the
more stringent shall be the amends which he shall be required to make
to God and to men for lawless behavior. And ecclesiastical amends shall
be diligently exacted in accordance with the directions contained in
the canon law, and secular amends in accordance with secular law.
If anyone slays a priest of the altar, he shall be both excommunicated
and outlawed, unless he make amends to the best of his ability by
pilgrimage, and likewise by the payment of compensation to the kin of
the slain man, or else he shall clear himself by an oath equal in value
to his wergeld. He shall begin to make amends to God and men within 30
days, under pain of forfeiting all that he possesses.
If an attempt is made to deprive a man in orders or a stranger of his
goods or his life, the king shall act as his kinsman and protector
unless he has some other. And such compensation as is fitting shall be
paid to the king, or he shall avenge the deed to the uttermost.
If a minister of the altar commits homicide or any other great crime,
he shall be deprived of his ecclesiastical office and banished, and
shall travel as a pilgrim as far as the Pope appoints for him and
zealously make amends. If he seeks to clear himself, he shall do so by
the triple mode of proof. If he does not begin to make amends both to
God and men within 30 days, he shall be outlawed.
If anyone binds or beats or deeply insults a man in holy orders, he
shall make amends towards him and shall pay the fine due to the bishop
for sacrilege, in accordance with the rank of the injured man, and to
his lord or to the king the full fine for breach of his mund, or he
shall clear himself by the full process of exculpation.
If a man in holy orders commits a capital crime, he shall be arrested,
and his cases shall be reserved for the bishop's decision.
If a condemned man desires confession, he shall never be refused him or
pay the king 120s. or he shall clear himself by selecting five men and
be himself the sixth.
*No condemned man shall be put to death during the Sunday festival,
unless he flees or fights, but he shall be arrested and kept in custody
until the festival is over. If a freeman works during a church
festival, he shall make amends by payment of his healsfang and make
amends to God according to the directions given him. If as slave works,
he shall undergo the lash or pay the fine, according to the nature of
the offense. If a lord compels his slave to work during a church
festival, he shall lose the slave, who shall then obtain the rights of
a freeman and the lord shall pay a fine or clear himself.
If a freeman breaks an ordained fast, he shall pay a fine. If a slave
does so, he shall undergo the lash or pay the fine in accordance with
the nature of the deed.
If anyone openly causes a breach of the fast of Lent by fighting or by
intercourse with women or by robbery or by any great misdeed, he shall
pay double compensation just as he must do during a high festival. If
he denies the charge, he shall clear himself by the triple process of
exculpation.
*If anyone refuses by force the payment of ecclesiastical dues, he
shall pay the full fine or he shall clear himself: he shall select 11
men and himself make a twelfth. If he wounds anyone, he shall make
amends and pay the full fine to the lord and redeem his hands from the
bishop or lose them. If he kills a man, he shall be outlawed and
pursued with hostility. If he so acts as to bring about his own death
by setting himself against the law, no compensation shall be paid for
him.
If anyone injures one of the clergy, he shall make amends according to
the rank of the person injured, either by the payment of his wergeld or
a fine or by the forfeiture of all his property.
*If anyone commits adultery, he shall make amends according to the
nature of the offense. It is wicked adultery for a pious man to commit
fornication with an unmarried woman, and much worse with the wife of
another man or with any woman who has taken religious vows.
*If anyone commits incest, he shall make amends according to the degree
of relationship between them, either by the payment of wergeld or of a
fine, or by the forfeiture of all his possessions.
*If anyone does violence to a widow or maiden, he shall pay his wergeld.
*If a woman commits adultery, her husband shall have all she possesses
and she shall lose her nose and her ears.
If a married man commits adultery with his own slave, he shall lose her
and make amends to God and to men.
*If anyone has a lawful wife and also a concubine, no priest shall
perform for him any of the offices which must be performed for a
Christian man, until he desists and makes amends as the bishop shall
direct.
Foreigners, if they will not regularize their unions, shall be driven
from the land with their possessions, and shall depart in sin.
*Any murderer shall be given up to the kinsmen of the slain man. The
bishop shall pronounce judgment.
*If anyone plots against the king or his own lord, he shall forfeit his
life and all that he possesses, unless he proves himself innocent by
the triple ordeal.
*If anyone violates the protection or a king, archbishop or bishop, he
shall pay 5, 3, or 2 pounds respectively as compensation.
*Anyone who fights at the king's court shall lose his life, unless
pardoned by the king.
*If a man unjustly disarms another, he shall compensate him by the
payment of his healsfang. If he binds him, he shall compensate by the
payment of half his wergeld.
If anyone is guilty of a capital deed of violence while serving in the
army, he shall lose his life or his wergeld.
*If a man makes forcible entry into another man's house, he shall pay 5
pounds to the king. If he is slain in such a case, no compensation
shall be paid for his death.
*Anyone guilty of robbery shall restore the stolen goods and pay the
injured man as much again and forfeit his wergeld to the king.
*According to secular law, assaults upon houses, arson, theft which
cannot be disproved, murder which cannot be denied, and treachery
towards a man's lord are crimes for which no compensation can be paid.
If anyone neglects the repair of fortifications or bridges or military
service, he shall pay 120s. to the king or he shall clear himself with
the support of 11 compurgators out of 14 nominated by the court.
The whole nation shall assist in the repair of churches.
If anyone unlawfully maintains an excommunicated person, he shall
deliver him up in accordance with the law, and pay compensation to him
to whom it belongs, and to the king his wergeld. Anyone keeping and
maintaining as excommunicated man or an outlaw shall risk losing his
life and all his property.
Greater leniency shall be shown in passing judgment and in imposing
penance on the weak than on the strong because they cannot bear an
equally heavy burden. So we distinguish between age and youth, wealth
and poverty, freemen and slaves, the sound and the weak.
*When a man is an involuntary agent in evil-doing or does something
unintentionally, he is more entitled to clemency.
All my reeves shall provide for me from my own property and no man need
give them anything as purveyance. If any of my reeves demands a fine,
he shall forfeit his wergeld to me. The public has been so far too
greatly oppressed by this.
*If a man dies intestate [without a will], whether through negligence
or sudden death, his lord shall take no more than his legal heriot. The
property shall be divided among his wife and children and near kinsmen
according to the share which belongs to him.
Heriots shall be fixed with regard to the rank of the person for whom
they are paid. The heriot of any earl is eight horses, four saddled and
four unsaddled, four helmets, four coats of chainmail, eight spears,
eight shields, four swords, and 200 mancuses of gold. The heriot of a
king's thegn is four horses, two saddled and two unsaddled, two swords,
four spears, four shields, four helmets, four coats of chain mail and
50 mancuses of gold, but among the Danes who possess rights of
jurisdiction 4 pounds. The heriot of an ordinary thegn is a horse and
its trappings and his weapons or his healsfang in Wessex, and in Mercia
2 pounds, and in East Anglia 2 pounds. The heriot of a man who stands
in a more intimate relationship to the king shall be two horses, one
saddled and one unsaddled, one sword, two spears, two shields, and 50
mancuses of gold. The heriot of a man who is inferior in wealth is 2
pounds.
When a householder has dwelt all his time free from claims and charges,
his wife and children shall dwell there unmolested by litigation.
*Every widow who remains a year without a husband shall do what she
herself desires. If within the space of a year, she chooses a husband,
she shall lose her morning gift and all the property she had from her
first husband, and his nearest relatives shall take the land and
property which she had held. And the second husband shall forfeit his
wergeld to the king or the lord to whom it has been granted. And
although she has been married by force, she shall lose her possessions,
unless she leaves the man and returns home. And no widow shall be too
hastily consecrated as a nun. And every widow shall pay heriots within
a year without incurring a fine, if it has not been convenient for her
to pay earlier.
*No woman or maiden shall be forced to marry a man whom she dislikes,
nor shall she be given for money, except the suitor desires of his own
freewill to give something.
If anyone sets his spear at the door to another man's house, he himself
having an errand inside, or if anyone carefully lays any other weapons
where they might remain quietly, and another seizes the weapon and
works mischief with it, he shall pay compensation for it. He who owns
the weapon may clear himself by asserting that the mischief was done
without his desire or authority or advice or cognizance.
*If anyone carries stolen goods home to his cottage and is detected,
the owner shall have what he has tracked. The wife shall be clear of
any charge of complicity unless the goods had been put under her lock
and key or in her storeroom, her chest, or her cupboard. But no wife
can forbid her husband from depositing anything in his cottage.
Until now it has been the custom for grasping persons to treat a child
which lay in the cradle, even though it had never tasted food, as being
guilty as though it were fully intelligent. I forbid this practice.
The man who, through cowardice, deserts his lord or his comrades in an
expedition, either by sea or by land, shall lose all he possesses and
his own life, and the lord shall take back the property and the land
which he had given him. And if he has land held by title-deed it shall
pass into the king's hands.
The heriots of the man who falls before his lord during a campaign,
whether within the country or abroad, shall be remitted, and the heirs
shall succeed to his land and property and make a very just division of
the same.
He who, with the cognisance of the shire, has performed the services
demanded from a landowner on expedition, either by sea or by land,
shall hold his land unmolested by litigation during his life, and at
his death shall have the right of disposing of it or giving it to
whomsoever he pleases.
*Every man is entitled to hunt in the woods and fields on his own
property. But everyone, under pain of incurring the full penalty, shall
avoid hunting on my preserves.
There shall never be any interference with bargains successfully
concluded or with the legal gifts made by a lord.
Every man shall be entitled to protection in going to and from
assemblies, unless he is a notorious thief.
*He who violates the law shall forfeit his wergeld to the king. And he
who violates it again, shall pay his wergeld twice over. And if he is
so presumptuous as to break it a third time, shall lose all he
possesses.
Love God and follow his law and obey our spiritual leaders, for it is
their duty to lead us to the judgment of God according to our works
wrought. Do what is right and good and guard against the hot fire of
hell. God Almighty have mercy upon us all, as His Will may be. Amen.
The Laws for London were:
"1. The gates called Aldersgate and Cripplegate were in charge of
guards.
2. If a small ship came to Billingsgate, one halfpenny was paid as
toll; if a larger ship with sails, one penny was paid.
1) If a hulk or merchantman arrives and lies there, four pence is
paid as toll.
2) From a ship with a cargo of planks, one plank is given as -toll.
3) On three days of the week toll for cloth [is paid] on Sunday and
Tuesday and Thursday.
4) A merchant who came to the bridge with a boat containing fish paid
one halfpenny as toll, and for a larger ship one penny."
5) - 8) Foreigners with wine or blubber fish or other goods and their
tolls. (Foreigners were allowed to buy wool, melted sheep fat [tallow],
and three live pigs for their ships.)
"3. If the town reeve or the village reeve or any other official
accuses anyone of having withheld toll, and the man replies that he has
kept back no toll which it was his legal duty to pay, he shall swear to
this with six others and shall be quit of the charge.
1) If he declares that he has paid toll, he shall produce the -man to
whom he paid it, and shall be quit of the charge.
2) If, however, he cannot produce the man to whom he paid it, he
shall pay the actual toll and as much again and five pounds to the King.
3) If he vouches the taxgatherer to warranty [asserting] that he paid
toll to him, and the latter denies it, he shall clear himself by the
ordeal and by no other means of proof.
4. And we [the king and his counselors] have decreed that a man who,
within the town, makes forcible entry into another man's -house without
permission and commits a breach of the peace of the worst kind and he
who assaults an innocent person on the King's highway, if he is slain,
shall lie in an unhonored grave.
1) If, before demanding justice, he has recourse to violence, but
does not lose his life thereby, he shall pay five pounds for breach of
the King's peace.
2) If he values the goodwill of the town itself, he shall pay us
thirty shillings as compensation, if the King will grant us -this
concession."
5. No base coin or coin defective in quality or weight, foreign or
English, may be used by a foreigner or an Englishman. (In 956, a person
found guilty of illicit coining was punished by loss of a hand.)
Judicial Procedure
There were courts for different geographical communities:
shires, hundreds, and vills. The arrangement of the whole kingdom into
shires was completed by 975 after being united under King Edgar.
A shire was a large area of land, headed by an earl. A shire
reeve or "sheriff" represented the royal interests in the shires and in
the shire courts. This officer came to be selected by the king and earl
of the shire to be a judicial and financial deputy of the earl and to
execute the law. The office of sheriff, which was not hereditary, was
also responsible for the administration of royal lands and royal
accounts. The sheriff summoned the freemen holding land in the shire,
four men selected by each community or township, and all public
officers to meet twice a year at their "shiremotes". Actually only the
great lords - the bishops, earls, and thegns - attended. The shire
court was primarily concerned with issues of the larger landholders.
Here the freemen interpreted the customary law of the locality. The
earl declared the secular law and the bishop declared the spiritual
law. They also declared the sentence of the judges. The earl usually
took a third of the profits, such as fines and forfeits, of the shire
court, and the bishop took a share. In time, the earls each came to
supervise several shires and the sheriff became head of the shire and
assumed the earl's duties there, such as heading the shire fyrd. The
shire court also heard cases which had been refused justice at the
hundredmote and cases of keeping the peace of the shire.
The hundred was a division of the shire, having come to refer
to a geographical area rather than a number of households. The monthly
hundredmote could be attended by any freeman holding land (or a lord's
steward), but was usually attended only by reeve, thegns, parish
priest, and four representatives selected by each agrarian community or
village - usually villeins. Here transfers of land were witnessed.
The sheriff, or a reeve in his place, presided over minor local
criminal and peace and order issues. When the jurisdiction was in the
hands of a sheriff, it was called the sheriff's tourn. All residents
were expected to attend this court. When the jurisdiction was in
private hands, it was called a leet court. Leet jurisdiction derived
from sac and soke jurisdiction. Sac and soc jurisdiction was possession
of legal powers of execution and profits of justice held by a noble or
institution over inhabitants and tenants of the estate, exercised
through a private court.
The sheriff usually held each hundred court, which heard civil cases.
The suitors to these courts were the same as those of the shire courts.
They were the judges who declared the law and ordered the form of
proof, such as compurgatory oath and ordeal. They were customarily
thegns, often twelve in number. They, as well as the king and the earl,
received part of the profits of justice. Summary procedure was followed
when a criminal was caught in the act or seized after a hue and cry.
Every freeman over age twelve had to be in a hundred and had to follow
the hue and cry.
In 997, King Ethelred in a law code ordered the sheriff and
twelve leading magnates of each shire to swear to accuse no innocent
man, nor conceal any guilty one. This was the germ of the later assize,
and later still the jury.
The integrity of the judicial system was protected by certain
penalties: for swearing a false oath, bot as determined by a cleric who
has heard his confession, or, if he has not confessed, denial of burial
in consecrated ground. Also a perjurer lost his oath-worthiness.
Swearing a false oath or perjury was also punishable by loss of one's
hand or half one's wergeld. A lord denying justice, as by upholding an
evildoing thegn of his, had to pay 120s. to the king for his
disobedience. Furthermore, if a lord protected a theow of his who had
stolen, he had to forfeit the theow and pay his wer, for the first
offense, and he was liable for all he property, for subsequent
offenses. There was a bot for anyone harboring a convicted offender. If
anyone failed to attend the gemot thrice after being summoned, he was
to pay the king a fine for his disobedience. If he did not pay this
fine or do right, the chief men of the burh were to ride to him, and
take all his property to put into surety. If he did not know of a
person who would be his surety, he was to be imprisoned. Failing that,
he was to be killed. But if he escaped, anyone who harbored him,
knowing him to be a fugitive, would be liable pay his wer. Anyone who
avenged a thief without wounding anyone, had to pay the king 120s. as
wite for the assault.
"And if anyone is so rich or belongs to so powerful a kindred,
that he cannot be restrained from crime or from protecting and
harboring criminals, he shall be led out of his native district with
his wife and children, and all his goods, to any part of the kingdom
which the King chooses, be he noble or commoner, whoever he may be -
with the provision that he shall never return to his native district.
And henceforth, let him never be encountered by anyone in that
district; otherwise he shall be treated as a thief caught in the act."
Courts controlled by lords of large private estates had various
kinds of jurisdiction recognized by the King: sac and soke [possession
of legal powers of execution and profits of justice held by a noble or
institution over inhabitants and tenants of the estate, exercised
through a private court], toll [right to collect a payment on the sale
of cattle and property] and team [right to hold a court to determine
the honesty of a man accused of illegal possession of cattle],
infangenetheof [the authority to judge and to hang and take the
chattels of a thief caught on the property], and utfangenetheof [the
authority to judge, punish, and take the chattels of a thief dwelling
out of his liberty, and committing theft without the same, if he were
caught within the lord's property]. Some lords were even given
jurisdiction over breach of the royal peace, ambush and treacherous
manslaughter, harboring of outlaws, forced entry into a residence, and
failure to answer a military summons. Often this court's jurisdiction
overlapped that of the hundred court and sometimes a whole hundred had
passed under the jurisdiction of an abbot, bishop, or earl.
A lord and his noble lady, or his steward, presided at this
court. The law was administered here on the same principles as at the
hundred court. Judges of the leet [minor criminal jurisdiction] of the
court of a large private estate were chosen from the constables and
four representatives selected from each community, village, or town.
The vill [similar to village] was the smallest community for
judicial purposes. There were several vills in a hundred.
Before a dispute went to the hundred court, it might be taken
care of by the head tithing man, e.g. cases between vills, between
neighbors, and some compensations and settlements, namely concerning
pastures, meadows, harvests, and contests between neighbors.
In London, the Hustings Court met weekly and decided such
issues as wills and bequests and commerce matters. The folkmote of all
citizens met three times a year. Each ward had a leet court.
The king and his witan decided the complaints and issues of the
nobility and those cases which had not received justice in the hundred
or shire court. The witan had a criminal jurisdiction and could
imprison or outlaw a person. The witan could even compel the king to
return any land he might have unjustly taken. Especially punishable by
the king was "oferhyrnesse": contempt of the king's law. It covered
refusal of justice, neglect of summons to gemot or pursuit of thieves,
disobedience to the king's officers, sounding the king's coin,
accepting another man's dependent without his leave, buying outside
markets, and refusing to pay Peter's pence.
The forests were peculiarly subject to the absolute will of the
king. They were outside the common law. Their unique customs and laws
protected the peace of the animals rather than the king's subjects.
Only special officials on special commissions heard their cases.
The form of oaths for compurgation
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