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.
There were riddles such as:
I am a strange creature, for I satisfy women ... I grow very
tall, erect in a bed. I'm hairy underneath. From time to time A
beautiful girl, the brave daughter Of some fellow dares to hold me
Grips my reddish skin, robs me of my head And puts me in the
pantry. At once that girl With plaited hair who has confined me
Remembers our meeting. Her eye moistens. What am I? An onion.
A man came walking where he knew She stood in a corner, stepped
forwards; The bold fellow plucked up his own Skirt by hand,
stuck something stiff Beneath her belt as she stood, Worked his
will. They both wiggled. The man hurried; his trusty helper
Plied a handy task, but tired At length, less strong than she,
Weary of the work. Thick beneath Her belt swelled the thing good men
Praise with their hearts and purses. What am I? A milk
churn.
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.
Ecclesiastical benefices were to pay church- scot, a payment in lieu of
first fruits of the land, to the pope.
- The Law -
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. The act of homage was symbolized by holding his hands together
between those of his lord. 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).
Everyone was to take an oath not to steal, which one's surety would
compel one to keep.
No one may receive another lord's man without the permission of this
lord and only if the man is blameless towards every hand. The penalty is
the bot for disobedience. No lord was to dismiss any of his men who had
been accused, until he had made compensation and done right.
"No woman or maiden shall be forced to marry a man she dislikes or
given for money."
"Violence to a widow or maiden is punishable by payment of one's
wergeld."
No man may have more wives than one.
No man may marry among his own kin within six degrees 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, or his god- mother, or a divorced
woman. Incest is punishable by payment of one's wergeld or a fine or
forfeiture of all his possessions.
Grounds for divorce were mutual consent or adultery or desertion.
Adultery was prohibited for men as well as for women. The penalty was
payment of a bot or denial of burial in consecrated ground. A law of
Canute provided that if a wife was guilty of adultery, she forfeited all
her property to her husband and her nose and ears, but this law did not
survive him.
Laymen may marry a second time, and a young widow may again take a
husband, but they will not receive a blessing and must do penance for
their incontinence.
Prostitutes were to be driven out of the land or destroyed in the land,
unless they cease from their wickedness and make amends to the utmost of
their ability.
Neither husband nor wife could sell family property without the other's
consent.
If there was a marriage agreement, it determined the wife's "dower",
which would be hers upon his death. Otherwise, if a man who held his
land in socage [owned it freely and not subject to a larger landholder]
died before his wife, she got half this property. If there were minor
children, she received all this property.
Inheritance of land to adult children was by the custom of the land
held. In some places, the custom was for the oldest son to take it and
in other places, the custom was for the youngest son to take it.
Usually, the sons each took an equal portion by partition, but the
eldest son had the right to buy out the others as to the chief messuage
[manor; dwelling and supporting land and buildings] as long as he
compensated them with property of equal value. If there were no
legitimate sons, then each daughter took an equal share when she
married.
In London, one-third of the personal property of a decedent went to his
wife, one-third went to his children in equal shares, and one-third he
could bequeath as he wished.
"If a man dies intestate [without a will], his lord shall have heriot
[horses, weapons, shields, and helmets] of his property according to the
deceased's rank and [the rest of] the property shall be divided among
his wife, children, and near kinsmen."
A man could justifiably kill an adulterer in the act with the man's
wife, daughter, sister, or mother. In Kent, a lord could fine any
bondswoman of his who had become pregnant without his permission
[childwyte].
A man could kill in defense of his own life, the life of his kinsmen,
his lord, or a man whose lord he was. The offender was "caught
red-handed" if the blood of his victim was still on him. Self-help was
available for hamsocne [breaking into a man's house to assault him].
Murder is punished by death as follows: "If any man break the King's
peace given by hand or seal, so that he slay the man to whom the peace
was given, both his life and lands shall be in the King's power if he be
taken, and if he cannot be taken he shall be held an outlaw by all, and
if anyone shall be able to slay him he shall have his spoils by law."
The king's peace usually extended to important designated individuals,
churches, assemblies, those traveling to courts or assemblies, and
particular times and places. Often a king would extend his peace to
fugitives from violent feuds if they asked the king, earls, and bishops
for time to pay compensation for their misdeeds. From this came the
practice of giving a portion of the "profits of justice" to such men who
tried the fugitive. The king's peace came to be extended to those most
vulnerable to violence: foreigners, strangers, and kinless persons.
"If anyone by force break or enter any man's court or house to slay or
wound or assault a man, he shall pay 100s. to the King as fine."
"If anyone slay a man within his court or his house, himself and all
his substance are at the King's will, save the dower of his wife if he
have endowed her."
If a person fights and wounds anyone, he is liable for his wer. If he
fells a man to death, he is then an outlaw and is to be seized by
raising the hue and cry. And if anyone kills him for resisting God's law
or the king's, there will be no compensation for his death.
A man could kill a thief over twelve years in the act of carrying off
his property over 8d., e.g. the thief hand-habbende [a thief found with
the stolen goods in his hand] or the thief back-berend [a thief found
carrying stolen goods on his back].
Cattle theft could be dealt with only by speedy pursuit. A person who
had involuntarily lost possession of cattle is to at once raise the hue
and cry. He was to inform the hundredman, who then called the
tithingmen. All these neighbors had to then follow the trail of the cow
to its taker, or pay 30d. to the hundred for the first offense; and 60d.
for the second offense, half to the hundred and half to the lord; and
half a pound [10s.] for the third offense; and forfeiture of all his
property and declared outlaw for the fourth offense. If the hundred
pursued a track into another hundred, notice was to be given to that
hundredman. If he did not go with them, he had to pay 30s. to the king.
If a thief was brought into prison, he was to be released after 40 days
if he paid his fine of 120s. His kindred could become his sureties, to
pay according to his wer if he stole again. If a thief forfeited his
freedom and gave himself up, but his kindred forsook him, and he does
not know of anyone who will make bot for him; let him then do
theow-work, and let the wer abate for the kindred.
Measures and weights of goods for sale shall be correct.
Every man shall have a warrantor to his market transactions and no one
shall buy and sell except in a market town; but he shall have the
witness of the portreeve or of other men of credit, who can be trusted.
Moneyers accused of minting money outside a designated market were to
go to the ordeal of the hot iron with the hand that was accused of doing
the fraud. If he was found guilty, his hand that did the offense was to
be struck off and be set up on the money- smithy.
No marketing, business, or hunting may be done on Sundays.
No one may bind a freeman, shave his head in derision, or shave off his
beard. Shaving was a sign of enslavement, which could be incurred by not
paying one's fines for offenses committed.
No clergy may gamble or participate in games of chance.
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. The
arrangement of the whole kingdom into shires was completed by 975 after
being united under King Edgar.
A shire was a larger 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 "shiremote". 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 county 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. A reeve,
sometimes the sheriff, presided over local criminal and peace and order
issues ["leet jurisdiction", which derived from sac and soc
jurisdiction] and civil cases at the hundred court. All residents were
expected to attend the leet court. The sheriff usually held each hundred
court in turn. 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.
"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
until he has appealed for justice in the hundred court and shire court".
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."
This lawsuit between a son and his mother over land was heard at a
shire meeting: "Here it is declared in this document that a shire
meeting sat at Aylton in King Cnut's time. There were present Bishop
AEthelstan and Earl Ranig and Edwin, the Earl's son, and Leofwine,
Wulfsige's son, and Thurkil the White; and Tofi the Proud came there on
the King's business, and Bryning the sheriff was present, and
AEthelweard of Frome and Leofwine of Frome and Godric of Stoke and all
the thegns of Herefordshire. Then Edwin, Enneawnes son, came traveling
to the meeting and sued his own mother for a certain piece of land,
namely Wellington and Cradley. Then the bishop asked whose business it
was to answer for his mother, and Thurkil the White replied that it was
his business to do so, if he knew the claim. As he did not know the
claim, three thegns were chosen from the meeting [to ride] to the place
where she was, namely at Fawley, and these were Leofwine of Frome and
AEthelsige the Red and Winsige the seaman, and when they came to her
they asked her what claim she had to the lands for which her son was
suing her. Then she said that she had no land that in any way belonged
to him, and was strongly incensed against her son, and summoned to her
kinswoman, Leofflaed, Thurkil's wife, and in front of them said to her
as follows: 'Here sits Leofflaed, my kinswoman, to whom, after my death,
I grant my land and my gold, my clothing and my raiment and all that I
possess.' And then she said to the thegns: 'Act like thegns, and duly
announce my message to the meeting before all the worthy men, and tell
them to whom I have granted my land and all my property, and not a thing
to my own son, and ask them to be witnesses of this.' And they did so;
they rode to the meeting and informed all the worthy men of the charge
that she had laid upon them. Then Thurkil the White stood up in the
meeting and asked all the thegns to give his wife the lands unreservedly
which her kinswoman had granted her, and they did so. Then Thurkil rode
to St. AEthelbert's minister, with the consent and cognizance of the
whole assembly, and had it recorded in a gospel book."
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 and to hand 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 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 [for minor criminal
matters].
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. Specially 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.