they may join together if they will in the wer. If they will not join
together, let him who lent the weapon pay of the wer a third part, and
of the wite a third part.
With his lord a man may fight free of liability for homicide, if any
one attack the lord: thus may the lord fight for his man. Likewise, a
man may fight with his born kinsman, if a man attack him wrongfully,
except against his lord. And a man may fight free of liability for
homicide, if he finds another with his lawful wife, within closed doors,
or under one covering, or with his lawfully born daughter, or with his
lawfully born sister, or with his mother, who was given to his father as
his lawful wife. If a man knows his foe is sitting at his home, he may
not fight with him before he demands justice of him. If he has such
power that he can beset his foe, and besiege him within, let him keep
him within for seven days, and not attack him if he will remains within.
And, then, after seven days, if he surrenders, and gives up his weapons,
let him be kept safe for thirty days, and let notice of him be given to
his kinsmen and his friends. But if he does not have sufficient power to
besiege him within, let him ride to the ealdorman, and beg aid of him.
If he will not aid him, let him ride to the king before he fights. In
like manner also, if a man come upon his foe, and he did not know
beforehand that he was staying at his home; if he is willing to give up
his weapons, let him be kept for thirty days, and let notice of him be
given to his friends; if he will not give up his weapons, then he may
attack him. If he is willing to surrender, and to give up his weapons,
and any one after that attack him, let him pay as well wer as wound, as
he may do, and wite, and let him have forfeited his compensation to his
kin. Every church shall have this peace: if a fugitive flee to one for
sanctuary, no one may drag him out for seven days. If he is willing to
give up his weapons to his foes, let him stay thirty days, and then let
notice of him be given to his kinsmen. If any man confess in church any
offenses which had not been before revealed, let him be half forgiven.
If a man from one holdgetael wishes to seek a lord in another
holdgetael, let him do it with the knowledge of the ealdorman whom he
before followed in his shire. If he does it without his knowledge, let
him who treats him as his man pay 120s. as wite, one-half to the king in
the shire where he before followed and one-half in that into which he
comes. If he has done anything wrong where he was before, let him make
bot for it who has there received him as his man; and to the king 120s.
as wite.
"If any one steals so that his wife and children don't know it, he
shall pay 60 shillings as wite. But if he steals with the knowledge of
all his household, they shall all go into slavery. A boy of ten years
may be privy to a theft."
"If one who takes a thief, or holds him for the person who took him,
lets the thief go, or conceals the theft, he shall pay for the thief
according to his wer. If he is an eorldormen, he shall forfeit his
shire, unless the king is willing to be merciful to him."
If any one steal in a church, let him pay the lawful penalty and the
wite, and let the hand be struck off with which he did it. If he will
redeem the hand, and that be allowed him, let him pay as may belong to
his wer.
If a man slanders another, the penalty is no lighter thing than that
his tongue be cut out; which must not be redeemed at any cheaper rate
than it is estimated at according to his wer.
If one deceives an unbetrothed woman and sleep with her, he must pay
for her and have her afterwards to wife. But if her father not approve,
he should pay money according to her dowry.
"If a man seize hold of the breast of a ceorlish woman, let him make
bot to her with 5 shillings. If he throw her down and do not lie with
her, let him make bot with 10 shillings. If he lie with her, let him
make bot with 60 shillings. If another man had before lain with her,
then let the bot be half that. If this befall a woman more nobly born,
let the bot increase according to the wer."
"If any one, with libidinous intent, seize a nun either by her raiment
or by her breast without her leave, let the bot be twofold, as we have
before ordained concerning a laywoman."
"If a man commit a rape upon a ceorl's female slave, he must pay bot to
the ceorl of 5 shillings and a wite [fine to the King] of 60 shillings.
If a male theow rape a female theow, let him make bot with his
testicles."
For the first dog bite, the owner pays 6 shillings, for the second, 12
shillings, for the third, 30 shillings.
An ox which gores someone to death shall be stoned.
If one steals or slays another's ox, he must give two oxen for it.
The man who has land left to him by his kindred must not give it away
from his kindred, if there is a writing or witness that such was
forbidden by those men who at first acquired it, and by those who gave
it to him; and then let that be declared in the presence of the king and
of the bishop, before his kinsmen.
- Judicial Procedure -
Cases were held at monthly meetings of the hundred court. The king or
one of his reeves, conducted the trial by compurgation.
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. If these "compurgators" were too few, 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 the witnesses failed, the defendant was told to go to church and to
take the sacrament only if he or she were innocent. If he or she took
the sacrament, he or she 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. 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. The results of the
ordeal were taken to indicate the will of God. Presumably 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]
would be hung and his possessions confiscated. A bishop's oath was
incontrovertible. Accused archbishops and bishops could clear themselves
with an oath that they were guiltless. Lesser ranks could clear
themselves with the oaths of three compurgators of their rank or, for
more serious offenses, undergo the ordeal of the consecrated morsel. For
this, one would swallow a morsel; if he choked on it, he was guilty.
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 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.
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."