above them, of gesithcund and twelve-hynde men, that we learn that a
part at least of the risk of misunderstanding may lie in the difference
between the tribal notion of service and freedom and the more modern one.
[Sidenote: Position and services of the twelve-hynde class.]
What, then, has tribal custom to teach us as to the position and services
of the twelve-hynde class?
[Sidenote: On a level with the Norse odalman.]
Reverting once more to the compact between Alfred and Guthrum, Dane
and English are to be equally dear at eight half-marks of gold. The
Englishman, without any limiting adjective, is the twelve-hynde man. And
he is put on a level with the Danish typical free landholder, the hauld
or odalman of the Norse laws, whose wergeld under Norse law was that
of the typical freeman everywhere--equivalent to the normal wergeld of
200 gold solidi, the mina of gold, the traditional wergeld of 100 head
of cattle. It was six times that of the Norse leysing, just as the
twelve-hyndeman’s wergeld in England was six times that of the ‘ceorl who
sits on gafol land.’
The English twelve-hynde man is therefore put on a level with the Norse
odaller or typical landholder. And so, as we have seen, the ceorl who
rose by the middle rungs of the ladder into the twelve-hynde position
had _inter alia_ to become a landholder of 5 hides, and his family
became gesithcund only after the landholding had continued to the fourth
generation. His great-grandchildren then became gesithcund with a
twelve-hynde wergeld.
[Sidenote: Twelve-hynde men were landholders.]
The twelve-hyndemen were therefore landholders, surrounded, in principle
at least if not always in practice, by a kindred. But what kind of a
landholding was it?
[Sidenote: Position of the first settlers.]
Approaching the question strictly from a tribal point of view, the
solidarity of the kindred involved in the payment and receipt of wergelds
would certainly suggest that those who had a right to receive and the
obligation to pay held a position in their kindred quite different from
that of the modern individual owner of land.
The analogy of Welsh and Irish and Salic and Norse and Scanian tribal
custom would lead us to infer that the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England
must have brought with them traditions of tribal or family ownership more
or less of the type of the Cymric gwely, though doubtless modified by
emigration and settlement in a new country.
[Sidenote: Separation from their kindreds threw them on the protection of
the king.]
After all that has been said, traditions and perhaps actual examples of
the individual ownership of the ‘Romanus possessor,’ and, still more
likely, actual experience of the Roman type of landed estates, may have
survived in Britain from the period of the Roman occupation, and the
Anglo-Saxon settlers may easily have been influenced in the matter of
landholding by what as conquerors they came to supplant. But they can
hardly have wholly cast off their own tribal traditions and instincts.
The continued payment and receipt of wergelds show that they did not.
Even, to take an extreme case, if they came to Britain as single settlers
having left their kinsmen behind them, still kindreds would gradually
grow up around their descendants in the new country. And tribal custom
left to itself would give to them landed rights, quite different from
those of the individual owner. But the interval, apart from other outside
influences, may well have subjected tribal custom to a strain.
From the point of view of this interval it may not be unreasonable to
revert to the clauses of King Alfred’s laws on ‘kinless men’ and the
Norman precedent, that the king was to take the place of the missing
maternal kindred and of advocate for a Norman if he had no other.[322]
Unless, therefore, the twelve-hynde settler was surrounded by a full
kindred in the new country, he must, according to his own tribal custom,
have found himself much more of an individual than he was used to be, and
therefore more dependent upon the protection of his chieftain or king.
We must not, on the one hand, conceive of the twelve-hynde settler
as having all at once adopted the independent position of the Roman
‘possessor,’ though circumstances may have sometimes severed him as
completely from his ‘parentilla’ as the ceremony of the Salic law.
Nor can we, on the other hand, conceive of him always as a tribesman
surrounded by his kindred. He may evidently, on the one hand, be released
from many of the trammels involved in membership of a kindred, but, on
the other hand, he is thrown more than ever under conditions of service
to the king.
[Sidenote: Service under tribal custom not degrading. But the ties of
kindred involved restraint on individual action.]
Let us for a moment revert to the tribal conception of these trammels and
services. They did not always involve degradation of social condition.
They often, as we have seen, were the mark of the attainment of a higher
position.
[Sidenote: The Norse odalman a sharer in the odal, with duties to his
kindred.]
The kindred of the aillts or strangers who settled upon a chieftain’s
land under Cymric custom was acknowledged in the fourth generation of
continued occupation, but at the moment a kindred was acknowledged its
members became _adscripti glebæ_. When the Irish fuidhir did the same
his descendants of the fourth generation found themselves not only
bound to the land, but also bound together by something like the rules
of the Cymric gwely, so that one of them could not sell or charge his
share without the consent of the others. We found the same thing in
Norway, where the rules for payment of the wergelds by relations were
more elaborate than anywhere else, and where the growth of kindred seems
so completely to have ruled the rise from one social grade to another,
till at last a man whose great-grandfather’s great-grandfather was a
freeborn landholder became an odaller. If at first sight we were to
picture the odalman to ourselves as an individual freeholder of Roman
or modern type we should soon find out our mistake when we learned that
if he wanted to sell his odal he must first _consult his odal-sharers_.
When examined closely the fact became evident that it was the _group of
kindred_ that by long settlement on the land had become odal, and that
the shares of individuals in the odal were subject--with, of course, many
differences--to some such tribal customs as those of the Cymric gwely.
The odalman was thus not a single isolated landowner. He was surrounded
by kindred odal like himself, reciprocally bound to fight for one another
and swear for one another, and to share in the payment or receipt of one
another’s wergeld. The odalman was protected by his kindred, but his
freedom of individual action was restricted by it.
[Sidenote: The Salic alod a family holding.]
So also under Salic law the joint inheritors of the alod on _terra
Salica_, with right of redivision between great-grandchildren _per
capita_, were in the same way trammelled, and when by a solemn public
form they released themselves from their obligations to their kindred
they relinquished also all rights of inheritance and protection (p. 134).
Are we to consider these Continental analogies to be without relevance to
Anglo-Saxon landholding?
Dr. Konrad von Maurer, in those masterly papers contributed in 1855 to
the ‘Kritische Ueberschau’ which are still so valuable, rightly lays
stress upon the power of the _kindred_ as the great rival of the power of
the _state_ in the development of Anglo-Saxon polity. We find but little
direct allusion to the kindred in the laws, it is true. But incidentally
and as it were by accident we have learned from passages mentioned in
their proper place that so late as the time of Athelstan there were
kindreds both twelve-hynde and twy-hynde powerful enough to defy the
King’s peace.[323]
This is in itself a significant reminder that more or less of tribal
custom remained in force behind the screen of the laws from which most
of our evidence has been taken. And yet we seem to be almost forced to
the conclusion that if we try to realise the position of the twelve-hynde
settler we must regard him, at all events for the first few generations,
as in a very different position from that of the Norse odalman in the
old country. Even though as head of his family he may have brought
descendants and dependents with him, he could not in the new country
be at once surrounded by kinsmen and odal-sharers who with himself had
hereditary rights in the land.
[Sidenote: Anglo-Saxon twelve-hynde settler pays gafol and service direct
to the king.]
We thus come round again to the point that so far as he may have been
separated from his kindred the first Anglo-Saxon settler must have found
himself thrown upon the protection of his chief and into a position of
individual service. He becomes, as we have seen according to the scanty
evidence of the Laws of Ine, a king’s gesith, with military and judicial
and administrative duties to discharge, put into a post of service which
he cannot relinquish at pleasure. Service to the king has to some extent
taken the place of the restraints of kindred, and so in a sense, like
the twy-hynde man, he has become a gafolgelda, but paying his gafol and
services direct to the king, and _adscriptus glebæ_, but tied to an
estate and an official position instead of to a yardland.
This view of the position of the gesithcund and twelve-hynde class rests
very much upon the incidental evidence of the Dooms of Ine, but the truth
of it is confirmed by the independent evidence of the precious fragment
already referred to. For its interesting evidence shows that, in addition
to his holding of five hides of land, it was precisely into this position
of gafol-paying and service _direct to the king_ that the ceorl of
ancient custom had to climb in order to earn the gesithcund status and
the twelve-hynde wergeld.
Thus we arrive at a definite and practical mark distinguishing
ultimately, and perhaps more or less from the first, the twelve-hynde and
twy-hynde classes.
The twelve-hynde or landed class paid gafol and did service direct to
the king. The twy-hynde or dependent class paid gafol and did service to
the landed class, who from this point of view were middlemen between the
twy-hynde gafolgelda and the king.
[Sidenote: The holding direct from the king easily becomes a manor.]
We seem, therefore, thus early to arrive at something analogous to
Professor Maitland’s technical definition of the Manor as the fiscal
unit from which gafol is paid direct to the king, while its lord is
the receiver of the payments and services of its tenants. The single
landholder who is not under a manorial lord in the Domesday survey is
said to hold ‘as for a manor’--though he may have no tenants.
[Sidenote: Tribal character of the manor as a judicial unit.]
It may be worth while in this connection to allude to another general
feature of the manorial estate on both sides of the Channel which if not
directly of tribal origin must at least have worked in close sympathy
with tribal custom.
The gesithcund man officially charged with the control of a district or
estate easily became in a manorial sense lord of the dependent tenants
upon it. And the judicial and magisterial adjunct to the lordship became
a prevalent feature of the typical manor.
We have seen that the ‘sac and soc’ of later times may have grown from
the root of the tribal principle involved in the sacredness of the
precinct or area of protection of the chieftain and, in degree, of every
grade of tribesman who possessed a homestead. How large a place this
principle occupied is shown by the prominence of the _fredus_ in Frankish
law and of the _mundbyrd_ in the early Anglo-Saxon laws. The manor was a
complex product of many factors, and tribal custom was certainly one of
them.
[Sidenote: Was it a family holding?]
Once again, what kind of a holding was that of the twelve-hyndeman? Was
it a family holding, and what were the rules of succession?
[Sidenote: Place names in favour of its being sometimes a family holding.]
Unfortunately, we do not know how far the immigrants came in kindreds
and families or as followers and ‘gesiths’ of military chieftains. But,
in any case, if we may take the evidence of place-names the great number
of patronymic names of places would lead to the supposition that the
holdings were family holdings. The _ham_ may at first have been the
estate of a gesithcund man held direct of the king with gafolgeldas and
geburs under him holding yardlands and doing work on his demesne. But
when it becomes an _ingham_ the patronymic termination points to the
lordship of the manor having been held, as time went on, jointly, in
somewhat the same way as the Cymric chieftainship in the gwely. His sons
and grandsons and great-grandsons may really have had their rights of
maintenance all along, and ultimately, if they were allowed to do so,
they may have sometimes divided the inheritance instead of continuing to
hold it jointly. Tribal instincts working alone would probably follow
some such line as this.
But it is easy to see that the nearer the holding of the twelve-hyndeman
approached to a benefice or office the stronger would be the tendency
towards single succession instead of divisions among heirs.
During the century or two after the first settlement there was time, no
doubt, for the growth of kindreds, and the thane in the king’s service
would soon become the head of a family group; but, on the other hand,
many influences were at work undermining the solidarity of the kindred
and strengthening the manorial element. Tribal instincts die hard. But
probably there never was full opportunity for the growth upon English
soil of anything like the solidarity in landholding of the Norse kindreds
of odal sharers tracing back their family possession for four or five
generations.
[Sidenote: Folk-land may have devolved under tribal custom.]
There is but little evidence on the rights or rules of succession to be
found in the laws. And the silence is suggestive of the continuance of
custom. Even the diplomatic evidence of wills and charters is so much
restricted to boc-land that it perhaps throws a shadow rather than direct
light upon the ordinary devolution of land which had not become the
subject of the Romanised rules of ownership, conveyance and testamentary
disposition.
But if Professor Vinogradoff is right in his view that folk-land was
that land which was still held under ancient custom, then for anything
we know, in spite of documentary silence, folk-land may still have been
held more or less as family rather than individual property even in later
times.
If the suggested analogy between the _terra Salica_ of the Salic laws
and the _folk-land_ of Anglo-Saxon documents could be proved, the family
character of the holdings in both cases would receive confirmation.
At the same time the frequent concurrence of relatives in Anglo-Saxon
dispositions of land and the common form of deprecation of future
interference on their part would at least be consistent with the
supposition.
[Sidenote: But feudal principles would tend towards single succession
outwardly.]
That as time went on the growing force of feudal principles would demand
single succession to landed estates whenever they could be regarded as
benefices is what might be expected. And it is worth noting that under
later feudal custom, by a kind of compromise, what was really a family
holding was often artificially moulded for practical purposes into a
single holding with apparent single succession.
[Sidenote: A single holding may cover internal family divisions.]
In the Domesday survey are many instances in which thanes or soldiers
here and there hold manors or fractions of manors ‘pariter’ or ‘in
paragio.’ And when the feudal tenancy ‘in parage’ is examined in its
fully developed form on the Continent, it is found to present many
resemblances to what under Cymric custom the family holding of a tribal
chief of kindred might be if the chief alone were regarded as the landed
person doing homage to the superior lord for all his kindred and if, in
the next stage, when the gwely was internally divided between brothers,
one of them only did homage for the rest. There were indeed in tribal
custom as to the chieftainship and the constitution of the gwely traits
which easily allowed themselves to be developed on feudal lines. For the
present purpose, however, the point seems to be that within what looks
from the outside like a single individual landholding there may have been
internal family divisions which are not apparent.
Passing now from what may be regarded as the holdings of the twelve-hynde
class, more or less tending to resemble manorial estates, to the
yardlands of the twy-hynde class, room may perhaps be found even in their
case for the exceptional continuance of the family element in spite of
the apparent single succession.
[Sidenote: Kentish family holdings.]
The Kentish holdings in sulungs and yokes instead of in hides and
yardlands seem to go back to the earliest Kentish records. The fact that,
in spite of the difference in date between the evidence of the earliest
charters and that of the Domesday survey and the surveys in the Battle
Abbey records and the ‘Black Book of St. Augustine,’ the holdings seem
to have been throughout in sulungs and yokes points to continuity. And
when these sulungs and yokes in the surveys are found to be very often
held by ‘the _heredes_ of so and so,’ or ‘so and so and his _pares_,’ it
seems fair to suggest that in these Kentish holdings there may have been
a survival of family ownership.
Whether it were so or not, this later Kentish evidence shows at least
that the continuance of family holdings was not necessarily inconsistent
with external uniformity in the sulungs and yokes of the open-field
system in Kent. And if so, why may not the same thing be true in
exceptional cases of the hides and yardlands of Wessex and Mercia?
Contrary principles have a strange way in practice of finding a _modus
vivendi_ till one of them at last overrides the other.
[Sidenote: Gavelkind holdings were family holdings.]
It will be remembered that one of the complaints of the existence of
kindreds powerful enough to defy the king’s peace in King Athelstan’s
time came from Kent. And if these facts may be taken as evidence that the
solidarity of kindreds had been better preserved in Kent than elsewhere
some tribal light might perhaps be thrown upon the survival of the custom
of gavelkind in Kent.
It is not a matter upon which we must dwell, but evidently the gavelkind
tenure must have been something different from the prevalent tenures
of other districts. The difference cannot have been the equal division
of the sulungs and yokes between sons as contrasted with the single
succession to the yardlands of other districts, because the sulungs and
yokes were apparently not interfered with by the gavelkind division
among heirs. And when the right of the youngest son under the custom of
gavelkind to succeed to the parental hearth is compared with the similar
right of the youngest son in the case of the Cymric gwely the inference
becomes very strong that the gavelkind holdings were family holdings and
the gavelkind divisions internal divisions within the family, like those
of the Cymric gwely, not necessarily interfering with the permanence
of the sulungs and yokes of the open-field system of which the family
holdings were composed or in which the family had rights.
The surveys of Kentish manors in the records of Battle Abbey and the
‘Black Book of St. Augustine’ present instances sometimes of sulungs and
yokes held by the _heredes_ of a deceased person and sometimes of others
which maintain their unity for purposes of payments and services although
in the possession of several holders. The sulung in these cases seems to
have continued to be the unit liable for the fixed ploughing and other
services irrespective of the question who were its occupants.[324]
Once more perhaps some light may be gained from Cymric tribal custom.
[Sidenote: Analogy of the Cymric trefgordd.]
We have learned from the Cymric evidence that a district might be divided
for purposes of revenue and food rents into sub-districts, irrespective
of who might be the occupants. And we have seen also how the Cymric
trefgordd or unit of pastoral occupation, with its one plough and one
churn and one herd of cattle under a single herdsman, could remain a
permanent taxable unit paying the tunc pound in lieu of food rents,
whoever might at the time be its occupants and have cattle in the herd.
Within the lines of tribal custom itself the members of a Cymric gwely
might be spread over a district and their cattle distributed among many
trefgordds, while from the chieftain’s point of view the local units of
taxation were uniform and regular.
[Sidenote: But the yardlands were mostly holdings with single succession
on payment of a relief to the lord.]
But this must not blind our eyes to the fact that the yardlands on
Anglo-Saxon estates were, so far as we can see, for the most part really
individual holdings with actual single succession. However hard tribal
custom may have fought for the family element, the manorial element in
the end seems to have prevailed on most manors so as to secure, for the
purposes of the lordship and the convenience of manorial management,
single succession to the yardlands. The fact that as early as King Ine’s
time we see new individual holdings of geburs being made by the allotment
of yardlands and homesteads to individual tenants in return for gafol and
work, when taken in connection with the ‘Rectitudines’ brings us back
to the likeness of these holdings to the holdings of the _villani_ of
later times. We see in the allotment of stock to the gebur, of which we
trace scattered evidence, the fact on which the principle of the later
villenage was based. Only when both homestead and yardland came from
the lord was there to be work as well as gafol under King Ine’s laws.
The stock of the holding according to the ‘Rectitudines’ belonged in
theory to the lord and upon the tenant’s death returned to the lord. The
continuance to another tenant on the payment of a relief involved the
admission that the holding and its outfit were a loan from the lord.
[Sidenote: The manorial element must not be lost sight of.]
The fact that in exceptional cases family holdings were able to maintain
their own under manorial management must not be allowed to lead us to
underrate the power of the manorial element. There were in tribal custom
itself as described by Tacitus elements of what we have elsewhere spoken
of as the embryo manor, but this must not blind our eyes to the fact that
something more was required to produce the general uniformity of holdings
and single succession upon manorial estates than tribal custom working
alone.
If from a tribal point of view we try to understand the growth of
manorial serfdom and see how on the Continent it was seemingly the
result of the combination of two leading factors, tribal custom and
Roman methods of land management, it becomes hardly possible to ignore
the presence of something like the same combination of two interacting
factors on British or English ground.
With the manorial side of serfdom in its connection with the widely
prevalent open field system we have already attempted to deal in a former
volume. That there may have been some continuity and continuance of
estates managed on the Roman system can hardly be denied. However far
the policy of extermination of the old inhabitants was carried, it never
extended over the whole area. And the whole of Britain was not conquered
in the same century. Even if the continuity of estates in Britain should
be considered to have been entirely broken by the Anglo-Saxon invasions
(which is hardly conceivable), it must be admitted that continuity and
likeness between England and the Continent as to land management was very
soon restored on monastic and other ecclesiastical estates, and perhaps
also upon what was Royal domain. Nor can it be doubted that herein was a
force greatly strengthening the manorial element.
[Sidenote: Tribal custom only would not meet the whole case.]
If we limit our view to the tribal side only of the problem, we recognise
that in Scandinavia and in the Cymric districts of our own island and in
Ireland tribal principles working alone tended powerfully, without help
from the Roman side, to produce a class of tenants becoming _adscripti
glebæ_ after four generations of occupation, but it did not produce
either in Norway or in Wales or Ireland or in Celtic Scotland that
general and typical form of occupation in uniform yardlands or ‘huben’
so prevalent in England and Germany on manorial estates with ostensibly
single succession and services in so many points resembling those of the
Roman colonate.
Whether the manor was the indirect or direct successor of the Roman
Villa--_i.e._ whether the continuity was broken or not--the _manorial_
use of the open-field system of agriculture seems to be required to
produce the uniformity of holdings in yardlands and the single succession
which marked what is roughly called the serfdom of the manorial estate.
[Sidenote: The open-field system not of manorial origin.]
It is hardly necessary to repeat that the open-field system itself
was not of manorial origin. It was essentially an economic result and
differed very greatly in its forms. Its main object seems to have been
fairness and equality of occupation. Under tribal custom, in Wales, it
arose out of coaration of portions of the waste or pasture by the common
plough-team to which the tribesmen or the taeogs, as the case might
be, contributed oxen. The strips were day-works of the plough taken in
rotation by the contributors according to the place of their oxen in the
plough-team for the season, and they returned into common pasture when
the crop had been removed. The tribesman in the pastoral stage was the
owner of oxen but not of the strips ploughed by them. They were merged
again in the common pasture of the district in which he had rights of
grazing for his cattle. And the cattle, and not the corn crops, were the
main thing upon which the system turned.
Whatever method of distribution may have been followed, as arable farming
increased and the strips became more and more permanently arable, mostly
on the two-field or the three-field system, the area of unploughed land
was more and more restricted and the pasture over the stubbles and
fallows obviously became more and more essential. The cattle, on the
one hand, required the pasture on the stubbles and fallows, and the
land, before being ploughed again, required the manure arising from the
pasturing of the flocks and herds upon it.
Where open-field husbandry still subsists in Western Europe, whether on
this or the other side of the Channel, the owner of the strips has still
no right of grazing upon his own strips till upon the appointed day
when the common right begins of all the holders to graze their cattle
in a common herd or flock over the whole area. This right is known in
France as the ‘vaine pâture,’ and it is still the most important and
indestructible element in the open-field husbandry. In the great open
fields around Chartres a man may plant his strips with vines if he likes,
but to this day, if he does so, he must let the sheep of the commune
graze over them after a certain date, in exercise of the immemorial right
of the _vaine pâture_.
[Sidenote: But uniform holdings and single succession are marks of
manorial lordship.]
In all this no manorial element need be present, and when the manorial
element is absent there is not necessarily any uniformity or single
succession in the holdings. But when manorial management comes upon the
top of this widely extended and all but universal system of agriculture,
whether in Roman times or later, the bundle of scattered strips which
under tribal custom could be ploughed by a pair of oxen whether alone
or in joint ploughing is very naturally taken as the typical holding.
And thus when we find in the Laws of Ine and later records gafolgeldas
and geburs settled upon yardlands and doing service by week-work on the
lord’s demesne the natural inference must be that it is the result of
manorial land management and that there has come into existence already
something like a manor with something like a community in serfdom upon
it, using the prevalent open-field system as the shell in which it will
henceforth live so far as its agriculture is concerned.
And so it seems natural to attribute to the manorial management and the
manorial requirement of fixed services and dues the uniformity of the
holdings and the single succession by which the uniformity was preserved.
The power which seeks and makes uniformity seems to come from above.
Agricultural communities of free tribesmen who had become individual
freeholders (if such could be conceived of as prevalent in King Ine’s and
King Alfred’s time) would probably have used the open-field system in a
quite different way. And we see no trace of it in the evidence.
[Sidenote: Later evidence of free holdings may not be to the point.]
When, however, we have said this we have no disposition to ignore or
make light of the later evidence upon which great stress has quite
rightly been laid by Professor Maitland in his remarkable work on ‘The
Domesday Survey and beyond,’ showing that there were in some districts
villages, in which the manorial element was apparently absent in the time
of Edward the Confessor, though appearing as manors after the Conquest.
He has suggested that in these villages not only the manor in name but
also the manor as a thing was apparently non-existent. There was in
these cases apparently, in King Edward’s time, no demesne land upon
which the services of a tenantry in villenage could be rendered, and the
tenants were often sokemen who had individually put themselves under the
protection of this lord or that, instead of there being one lordship over
the group, as in a manor.
[Sidenote: The Danish wars left many estates vacant, which may have been
reconstructed on feudal rather than manorial lines.]
These lordless villages on the eve of the Conquest as shown by the
entries T. R. E. in the Domesday survey and especially in the ‘Inquisitio
Eliensis,’ merit more careful study than has yet been given to them, and
so far as they can be shown to prove the existence of free villages of
_liberi homines_ or _socmanni_, after the Conquest merged sometimes in
the class of _villani_, I am ready to welcome the evidence. But unless
they can be traced back to earlier times, their occurrence mostly in the
Danish districts interspersed with other villages which were manors
and had demesne land, together with the singular fact that the holders
in these villages were commended to several lords, suggests that their
peculiar position may date from the time of the Danish invasions, and
be the result of the devastations as to the effects of which the ‘Liber
Eliensis’ contains so much evidence. Many a manor may have lost both lord
and tenants, and have been filled up again by the great lords of the
district with new tenants--soldiers and servants who had served in the
wars, it may be. Thus these cases, in which many features of the ordinary
manor were apparently missing in the time of Edward the Confessor, may
be of recent date and so, while important when viewed in relation to
the Domesday survey and the changes made by the Conquest, not specially
instructive as regards earlier Anglo-Saxon conditions.
[Sidenote: The fact regarding the Danelaga still very little known.]
Unfortunately, as we have seen, the laws of the Danish period, while
recording existing and modified Anglo-Saxon customs on various points,
leave us in the dark as to Danish custom, whether of old standing in the
Danelaga or newly imported in King Cnut’s time. It was, no doubt, known
to the invaders, and it was enough for them to say ‘as the law stands,’
though we do not know what it was. The whole question of the Danelaga
was purposely omitted from the scope of my former volume, and now, after
twenty years, still remains a subject requiring careful examination by
future inquirers.
But this cannot be done completely until the minute work which Professor
Maitland and Mr. Round and Mr. Corbett are gradually doing upon the
Domesday survey itself in its local details has been further pursued, and
it lies, with so many other branches of a difficult subject, beyond the
limits of the inquiry made in this volume.
[Sidenote: New feudal tenures may have had a tribal root. St. Oswald’s
tenants for three successive lives.]
Reference may, however, be incidentally made to the numerous cases in
which, in order to describe the nature of the tenure of socmanni and
others under what were perhaps new conditions, the fact was recorded in
varying phrases whether this person or that could or could not leave or
sell his land. Of some it is stated ‘possunt recedere,’ of others ‘non
possunt recedere’--of some ‘possunt vendere,’ of others ‘non possunt
vendere.’ Though these tenures may have been comparatively modern and
may belong to a period of advanced feudal conditions, still it may be
possible that some trait of tribal custom may lurk at the root of the
distinction. From the manorial point of view, it was necessary to record
of the socmanni whether they had only limited rights in the land subject
to the performance of services and ‘consuetudines’ (which, by the way,
seem to have been very much like those of the villani) or whether they
were permanent freeholders who could sell their holdings and leave the
land when they liked.[325] The position of the tenants in this respect
was probably dependent upon the tenure under which they held, _i.e._ upon
whether they were tenants with only life interests, or for successive
lives, or, as we should say, tenants in fee. After the devastations
of war many new tenants must have been put upon desolated manors, and
Professor Maitland has very rightly laid stress in another connection on
the traditional habit of granting leases for three lives only, so that a
holding might ultimately return to the lord. He has pointed out that when
Bishop Oswald (A.D. 962-992), exercising manorial rights over the great
domain of the Church of Worcester made these leases to thanes on certain
services for three successive lives (_i.e._ for the lives of father, son,
and grandson) he did it expressly for the purpose of securing to his
successor full power to renew them or not.[326] And from a tribal point
of view it may be a pertinent question whether the restriction to the
three generations had not some indirect connection with the tribal custom
or instinct, so often alluded to, which gave to the fourth generation of
uninterrupted occupation fixity of tenure and status.
[Sidenote: Tribal custom known to Danes and Normans.]
Recurring to the scattered cases of thanes holding ‘in paragio’ and by no
means confined to the Danish districts,[327] it was necessary to state in
the Domesday records, as in the case of the socmanni, whether they had or
had not power to leave or to sell, and it may be useful that we should be
reminded by these cases, in which feudal custom had possibly arisen out
of tribal custom, that tribal custom was not unknown to the Danish and
Norman conquerors of England. The Danish immigrants came from a district
in which tribal custom was still fresh and vigorous. The Normans too, as
is shown by the so-called Laws of Henry I., found Anglo-Saxon custom by
no means altogether alien to their own instincts.
Before concluding this essay perhaps a further observation should be made.
We have learned in the course of this inquiry that it does not do to
take too insular a view of Anglo-Saxon conditions. The similarity of
wergelds, and indeed of tribal custom generally, has throughout become
very apparent. But perhaps it is hardly more striking than the similarity
in the _modifications_ of tribal custom found in the laws on both sides
of the Channel.
In their migrations and conquests the conquering tribes found themselves
everywhere breathing a moral atmosphere in which it was difficult for the
old tribal instincts to live. In such matters as the responsibility of
a master for his slave’s homicides and of relatives for their kinsman’s
crimes we have watched as it were modifications of tribal custom in the
course of being made, here and there, on almost identical lines. May it
not have been so also in regard to the important matter of the division
of classes?
[Sidenote: Romanising and Christian influences apart from the manor.]
If we have recognised rightly the tribal principles originally at the
root of the distinction between the twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes
there is no reason why we should not recognise also that besides the
potent force of manorial management there may have been other influences
at work widening the gulf between the two classes, and, so to speak,
reducing to a level the members of each class by breaking away the rungs
of the ladder between them.
It must not be overlooked that in the earliest Continental laws most
nearly contemporary with those of Kent--Alamannic, Bavarian, Burgundian,
and Wisigothic--the divisions of society have a very artificial look,
as though largely based upon wealth rather than the tribal principles of
kindred.
Now, German writers are not agreed upon the point whether these
artificial divisions found in these earliest of the laws ought to be
regarded as belonging to ancient German custom or whether they may not
rather be traced to Roman influences.[328]
[Sidenote: The earliest laws most influenced by Roman traditions.]
We have already seen how necessary it is in connection with these early
laws to discriminate between ancient custom and the new influences
which were working in them in the direction of individualism and the
disintegration of the kindred. The earliest laws are, as we have seen,
just those in which tribal custom had fared the worst.
[Sidenote: Non-tribal division of classes.]
In the Alamannic Pactus of the sixth century (Fragment ii. 36) the grades
for wergelds were as under:--
(1) ‘baro de minoflidis,’
(2) ‘medianus Alamannus,’
(3) ‘primus’ _or_ ‘meliorissimus Alamannus.’
And these were subdivisions of the _ingenuus_ class, for there were
below them the _lidus_ and the _servus_. In another clause (iii. s. 25)
a similar division is applied to animals. The penalties are given for
killing ordinary, ‘mediana,’ and ‘meliorissima jumenta.’
In the Burgundian law the division of society into three
grades--_optimates_, _mediocres_, and _inferiores_--is found in the _Lex
Romana_ and is applied to Romans and Burgundians alike. These divisions
seem to supplant those of kindred, and to have no tribal principle at
their root.[329]
In the Wisigothic laws the disintegration of tribal society is so far
advanced that the wergelds of the _ingenuus_ class are regulated, not by
kindred or social position, but, as we have seen, according to the age of
the individual.
It is difficult not to connect the substitution of artificial grades for
those dependent on kindred with the Roman tendency to divide society into
‘patrician’ and ‘plebs,’ and the ‘plebs’ according to position and wealth
into _honestiores_ and _humiliores_.
Already in Cæsar’s time we see how difficult it was from a Roman point
of view to understand the relation under tribal custom of the dependent
tribesmen to their chieftain. Cæsar does not seem to have recognised
the link of blood-relationship between them. To his view the chieftains
were _equites_ and the tribesmen almost their _servi_. It was difficult
otherwise to bring the two classes within some recognised category of
Roman law.
So it was no doubt, in degree, at the later period in the case of the
conquering German tribes, when the Romanising forces were mainly in
clerical hands.
The influence of the Church also told in favour of the artificial and
anti-tribal division of the people into great men and small men. Its
tenets of individual responsibility favoured individualism.
[Sidenote: The anti-tribal influences of the Church in Southern Europe.]
Canon XVI. of the Council of Orleans (A.D. 549) shows that the
ecclesiastical mind in Gaul was familiar with the division into classes
‘majorum et mediocrium personarum.’
[Sidenote: Evidence of Merovingian formulæ as regards wergelds.]
A canon of an earlier Council (A.D. 511) shows how by taking refuge in
a church a homicide received protection till composition was arranged,
and how thus the question of wergelds was brought within clerical
recognition. Once brought within its power the Church was not likely
to let it slip from its grasp. And the collections of Formulæ of the
Merovingian period show how the clergy joined with the other authorities
in arranging the payment of wergelds and the prevention of private
vengeance. From these formulæ it would seem that the payment and perhaps
the amount of the wergeld had become to some extent a matter of mediation
and arrangement through the intervention of ‘boni homines’ who were
sometimes ‘sacerdotes.’[330] And when the award was given and the payment
made, it was natural that a formal charter of acknowledgment in stay of
vengeance on the part of the relations of the slain should be insisted
upon. Each set of formulæ contains a form for this purpose. The matter of
wergelds had become a subject of Franco-Roman conveyancing.
[Sidenote: Clerical influences in England in favour of individualism,
evident in the modification of custom found in the Anglo-Saxon laws.]
Romanising and clerical influences thus working together in connection
with wergelds would naturally tend to exclude from consideration the
question of kindred, and to make the payment of the wergeld a matter for
the homicide alone.
Long before the time of King Ine these Romanising influences must have
been at work in England, as elsewhere, introducing new considerations of
justice and the position of classes founded on Roman law and Christian
feeling, and not upon tribal custom.
We have recognised some such action as this in the nearly contemporary
Canons and in the Kentish laws, as well as in the later Anglo-Saxon laws,
and indeed again and again throughout this inquiry, so that while we have
had to notice again and again the extent to which the Church succumbed
to tribal custom when it suited its purpose to do so, it must not be
forgotten how much of the modification of custom found in the laws was
due to the influence of the Romanised Church.
It is not, therefore, enough to recognise only Romanised forms of land
management under clerical influence. We must recognise also something of
the same persistent antagonism of the Church to tribal custom which on
the Continent had already in the sixth and seventh centuries sometimes
succeeded in extruding considerations of kindred from the matter of
wergelds, and to a great extent also from the question of the division of
classes.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Last words.]
With this further recognition of outside influences, this contribution
towards the understanding of a difficult question must come to an end.
All that can be claimed on its behalf is that a few further steps in
advance may have been made good. It may seem to have resulted rather in
the restatement of some of the problems than in their solution. But this
is what might be expected from the attempt to approach a subject which
has many sides especially with light from the tribal side only. Following
the true method of working from the known to the unknown, it is not until
such a problem has been approached separately from its different sides
that a final solution can be reached; and this involves the fellow work
of many historical students.
In the meantime, without ignoring or seeking to minimise the force of
other important influences, it may, I think, safely be said that we have
found the influence of tribal custom upon Anglo-Saxon polity and economic
conditions as apparent, all things considered, as there could be reason
to expect.
It was a factor in economic development which, among others and in due
proportion, has to be reckoned with, and its study has the special value
that it helps to bring the student of the Anglo-Saxon laws to regard them
from the point of view of the Anglo-Saxon settlers themselves.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _Origin of Currency and Weight Standards_, Camb. U. Press, 1892.
[2] For convenience I adhere throughout to reckoning in _wheat-grains_.
Professor Ridgeway informs me that three barleycorns were equated with
four wheat-grains, and that a passage in Theophrastus shows that in the
fourth century B.C. 12 barleycorns = obol and 12 obols = the stater. The
Greek diobol = therefore 24 barleycorns, _i.e._ 32 wheat-grains, and
the stater = 144 barleycorns, _i.e._ 192 wheat-grains. The reader will
understand that as Romans, Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans reckoned in
wheat-grains, there will be great convenience in adhering throughout to
wheat-grains in this inquiry. And further the theoretic building up of
weights in wheat-grains was preserved traditionally more easily than the
actual standards of weight.
[3] The range of the variation in the actual weight of the stater as a
coin (without necessarily implying variation in the theoretic weight in
wheat-grains) is given by metrologists as follows:
Grammes
Babylonian 8·18
Crœsus 8·18
Darius 8·36 to 8·41
Attic 8·64 to 8·73
Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great 8·73
The Greek cities on the Black Sea 9·06
[4] _Kinship &c. in Arabia_, p. 53.
[5] _Ordinances of Manu_, xi. pp. 128-131.
[6] Sections 8 and 11.
[7] Herod. v. c. 77 and vi. c. 79.
[8] The latest results of metrological research are most conveniently
stated by Hultsch in his _Die Gewichte des Alterthums nach ihrem
Zusammenhange dargestellt_, Leipzig, 1898. And Mr. F. G. Hill, of the
British Museum, has recently issued an excellent hand-book of the Greek
and Roman coins containing information on these points.
[9] The relation of the ancient Gallic gold currency to the subject of
wergelds is interesting and important, but cannot be enlarged upon here.
[10] For the authorities for the following short statement see _infra_,
Chap. VII. s. 1.
[11] Besides these silver _tremisses_ some silver _scripula_ were issued,
but it is with the sceatts mainly that we have to do. In connection with
the next section, however, the fact that the scripulum was current as a
coin is worth notice.
[12] _Metrologicorum Scriptorum Reliquiae_ (Lipsiae, 1866).
[13] Hultsch, _Die Gewichte des Alterthums_, pp. 53 and 203.
[14] _Metr. Script._ ii. 131-139.
[15] Hultsch, _Metr. Script._ i. pp. 66 and 87.
[16] Athelstan, vi. 6, s. 2 and vi. 3; and see Schmid’s Glossary under
_Geldrechnung_.
[17] There can hardly have been at Tours at this moment any other
Liutgarda than the queen under Alcuin’s spiritual charge.
[18] For this incident see _Alcuini Epist._ xxv.
[19] _Metr. Script._ ii. 31, 99, 114, &c.
[20] For the references to the Codes and Extents, and authorities for the
statements in this summary, the reader must be referred to the former
volume. But for additional statements full references will be given.
Where not otherwise stated, the figures refer to the two volumes of
_Ancient Laws of Wales_.
[21] Prof. Rhys informs me that _da_ in Carnarvonshire local dialect
still means ‘cattle,’ while in other parts of Wales it has the wider
meaning of ‘goods.’
The allotment of cattle involved grazing rights, and often separate
homesteads. Accordingly in the Denbigh Extent we find that so and so
‘habet domum’ or ‘non habet domum.’
This dependence for maintenance of the boy upon the higher chieftain is
indirectly confirmed by the Extents, which mention among the chieftain’s
rights the ‘fosterage of youths’ &c. See _Tribal System in Wales_, p. 169.
That the chieftain who gives the _da_ was the ‘chief of kindred’ and not
a mere territorial lord is shown by the fact that when a stranger family
have lived in the land till they have formed a kindred by intermarriage
with Cymraes, all the members of the family become ‘man and kin’ to the
chief of kindred of the new kindred. _Tribal System in Wales_, p. 132.
[22] i. pp. 167-169.
[23] p. 543.
[24] p. 549, s. 19.
[25] i. 96 and 545.
[26] If the sister was married to an alltud and her son killed a person,
⅔ of the galanas fell on the mother’s kindred (i. p. 209), but there was
no liability beyond the gwely or second cousins (ii. p. 657).
[27] ‘The galanas of every female shall always be to the kindred,’ i. p.
241.
[28] ‘Three cases wherein a wife is to answer without her husband. The
first is for homicide,’ i. p. 463. But for accessories to murder she
and her husband pay her camlwrw and derwy, i. p. 105; and she can claim
_spearpenny_, i. pp. 103, 705; ii. p. 65.
[29] i. pp. 231-3, 409, 517, 747; ii. p. 695. On separation husband and
wife divided the cattle and most other things equally.
[30] ii. pp. 281-2, 740.
[31] i. p. 765; ii. p. 269.
[32] ii. p. 693.
[33] ii. p. 531.
[34] i. p. 415.
[35] i. pp. 259, 447.
[36] _Tribal System in Wales_, App. p. 59, &c.
[37] The principal tref as contrasted with summer bothy on the mountains.
[38] ii. p. 563.
[39] i. p. 795.
[40] Fol. 280.
[41] i. pp. 283, 499.
[42] i. pp. 111, 459, 745; ii. p. 257.
[43] i. pp. 201, 535.
[44] ii. p. 493.
[45] i. p. 141.
[46] i. p. 229.
[47] For the following statements see _Venedotian Code_, i. p. 223, &c.;
and _Dimetian Code_, i. p. 407, &c.
[48] Sisters paid for their possible children, and if these children were
of age they paid instead of their mothers. After the age at which they
could not have children, the sisters did not pay (i. p. 99). That the
daughter after twelve was independent of her father with _da_ of her own,
see i. p. 205.
[49] i. p. 229.
[50] i. pp. 77, 103.
[51] ii. p. 693.
[52] i. p. 747.
[53] i. p. 231.
[54] i. p. 271.
[55] i. p. 565.
[56] _English Village Community_, c. ix.
[57] For details and references to the Codes I must refer the reader to
Chap. V. of _The Tribal System in Wales_.
[58] See _infra_, p. 319.
[59] In the quotation of passages from _Beowulf_ I have mostly followed
Professor Earle’s translations.
[60] See _Structure of Greek Tribal Society_, by H. E. Seebohm, chap. ii.
[61] _Nefan_ cannot mean son or grandson, for Hygelac was his father and
his grandfather was Hrethel.
[62] The references in this chapter are to the four volumes of _The
Ancient Laws of Ireland_. I regret very much not to have had the
advantage of vol. v. edited by Dr. Atkinson and not yet published, but I
am greatly indebted to him for his kind help and advice on many difficult
points.
[63] iv. p. 259. This passage is abridged.
[64] iii. p. 69.
[65] _Ibid._ and iv. 245-248.
[66] _Cours de Littérature Celtique_, tome vii. _Etude sur le Droit
Celtique_, tome i. p. 186.
[67] The view here taken, that the four fines in the geilfine division
are classes or grades of relationship, makes more intelligible the rules
laid down in the Book of Aicill (iii. 331-335), especially the one which
determines that ‘if one person comes up into the “geilfine” so as to make
it excessive, a man must go out of it into the “deirbhfine,” and a man
is to pass from one division into the other up as far as the indfine,
and a man is to pass from that into the community.’ Obviously, as a
fresh _generation_ comes into the nearest hearth, a generation at the
top naturally moves out of the group. The great-grandfather becomes a
great-great-grandfather, and so on.
[68] i. p. 263, and iv. p. 245.
[69] iv. p. 245.
[70] iii. p. 99.
[71] p. 101.
[72] ii. p. 195.
[73] iv. p. 283.
[74] Dr. Atkinson has kindly given me a reference to MS. H. 3-18, 237 and
485, the former of which ends its paragraph on ‘sencleithe’ thus:--‘If
he serve from that onward, till the fifth man come and during the time
(_his_ time?), then he is a sencleithe and he cannot go from the heirs
[comarba] for ever after.’
[75] See _Senchus Mor_, i. p. 76 and iii. p. 43.
[76] i. pp. 65-77.
[77] _Round Towers of Ireland_, p. 219.
[78] Fol. 181, b.b. This will be inserted in Dr. Atkinson’s vol. v. of
the Brehon Laws.
[79] In one MS. ‘six score ounces.’
[80] Petrie, _Round Towers of Ireland_, p. 214.
[81] _Tripartite Life of St. Patrick_, ii. p. 372.
[82] _Ibid._ i. p. 212.
[83] Altilia, _i.e._ fattened heifers, Skeat, _sub voce_ ‘heifer.’
[84] The samaisc heifer of the Brehon Laws being ½ oz., and the dairt
heifer ⅙ oz., the fattened heifer would naturally take the middle place
between them as ¼ oz.
[85] Wasserschleben refers these canons to the fifth century Synod under
St. Patrick.
[86] ‘_Si colirio indiguerit_’ seems to be equivalent to the Irish
‘that requires a tent.’ But Dr. Atkinson informs me that the Irish word
literally means ‘a plug of lint.’
[87] Compare this clause with the ‘Book of the Angel,’ _Tripartite Life_,
ii. p. 355. ‘Item si non receperit prædictum præsulem in hospitium eundem
et reclusserit suam habitationem contra illum, septem ancillas (cumala)
sive septem annos pœnitentiæ similiter reddere cogatur.’
[88] See _Senchus Mor_, i. p. 43: ‘Equal dire-fine for a king and a
bishop, _i.e._ equal honour-price to the “rig tuath” and the bishop,
_i.e._ of the church of a “rig tuath.”’
[89] P. 141.
[90] i. p. 127.
[91] _Pœnitentiale Vinnicii_, s. 23; Wasserschleben, p. 113.
[92] _Tripartite Life_, p. 378 _n._
[93] _Questions Historiques_, pp. 105-117.
[94] Pertz, Bluhme’s preface, p. 498.
[95] Bindung’s _Das Burgundisch-Romanische Königreich von 443 bis 532 n.
Chr._ chap. i.
[96] Lib. vii. Tit. iii. s. 3.
[97] Lib. vi. Tit. v.
[98] Hessels and Kern, Codex x. Tit. lxi.
[99] Brunner (_Sippe und Wergeld_, p. 31) prefers the reading of the
other codices, ‘on either side,’ but the principle is the same; the fisc
gets whatever share lapses, whether it be ¼ or ½.
[100] Hessels and Kern, Tit. ci., p. 412. Pertz, _Legg._ 11, 5.
[101] This translation of the final clause does not materially vary in
meaning from that of Brunner, _Sippe und Wergeld_, p. 34.
[102] Brunner, _Sippe und Wergeld_, p. 34.
[103] _Sippe und Wergeld_, p. 34.
[104] _Sippe und Wergeld_, p. 36. ‘Es dünkt mir sehr wahrscheinlich, dass
auch in der Lex Salica unter den ‘tres proximiores’ Verwandte von drei
verschiedenen Parentelen gemeint sind.’
Later examples of division of wergelds in other districts quoted by
Brunner show that the division of the kindred into three similar grades
or groups was prevalent also in Frisian and Saxon districts.
[105] Codices 3, 7, 8, 9 have ‘de quod non.’
[106] Tit. xxix.
[107] See his essay on this subject in his _Problèmes d’Histoire_, pp.
361 &c.
[108] Brunner, in his _Sippe und Wergeld_, shows this clearly, pp. 1-3.
[109] Blumenstock, i. 266.
[110] Tit. lvi.
[111] Tit. vi.
[112] The clause _De reipus_ is very important in regard to some of these
points. But the subject is too difficult a one to be discussed here.
[113] Guérard, on the other hand, says: ‘C’est l’alleu d’un Salien défunt
que la loi divise en deux parts: dans l’une est la terre salique, et dans
l’autre la terre non salique; mais ces deux terres sont également partie
de la succession du défunt.’ _Polyptique d’Irminon_, i. p. 487. But he
does not seem to have noted the use of ‘land’ unqualified in the saving
clause of the first 4 codices.
[114] _Erbenfolge_, &c., pp. 12-14.
[115] _Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben_, i. p. 39.
[116] _Polypt. d’Irminon_, i. p. 495.
[117] _English Historical Review_, January 1893.
[118] Hessels and Kern, Tit. 78; Pertz, _Leg._ ii. p. 10.
[119] See note in Hessels and Kern, and Amira in his _Erbenfolge_, p. 16
(München, 1874).
[120] See _supra_, pp. 26, 27.
[121] This is repeated, ii. p. 391. ‘The argluyd takes him as a son, and
if he die receives his _da_ unless he leaves a son.’ Up to 14 his father
was his ‘argluyd.’
[122] Sohm, in his preface to the _Lex_ in Pertz (dated 1882), p. 188,
concludes that this clause and clause 36 must be referred to the sixth
century. There is a Formula in Marculf’s collection in which instructions
are given to a newly appointed official, _inter alia_, to judge Franks,
Romans, Burgundians, and those of other nations ‘secundum lege et
consuetudine eorum’ (Marc. _Form._, Lib. i. 8.)
[123] In the Burgundian Law the wergeld is 150 solidi; in the Alamannic
Law, 160 solidi; in the Bavarian law, 160 solidi. That this was also the
wergeld of the Frisian and Saxon see _infra_.
[124] See Merkel’s preface to the laws in Pertz, p. 14.
[125] In the Burgundian laws the division is into ‘optimatus’ with a
wergeld of 300 sol., ‘mediocris’ with 200 sol., and ‘minores ’ with 150
sol.
[126] Introduction, p. iv.
[127] Martini, _Metrologia_, _sub_ ‘Roma.’ See also _Traité de Numismatique
du Moyen Age_, par A. Engel, vol. i. p. 222.
[128] Pertz, p. 119.
[129] Pertz, p. 149.
[130] _Hludowici et Hlotharii Capitularia_, Pertz, p. 251.
[131] _De Mirac. S. Martini_, l. i. c. 31. Mention of the _aureus_ occurs
twenty-four times in the index to his works. Mention of _trientes_ occurs
twelve times, and of _argentei_ five times.
[132] In some codices placed at the end of Lib. xii., Tit. ii. See
edition of Walter (1824), p. 669.
[133] ‘Ex Isidori Etymologiarum Libris, c. De ponderibus.’ Hultsch, ii.
113.
[134] Twelve argentei (12 × 72 w.g.) = 864 w.g., or at 1:10 the
Merovingian solidus of 86·4 w.g.
[135] Pertz, p. 18.
[136] Pertz, p. 31.
[137] Pertz, p. 39.
[138] In this Capitulare three grades of payments are stated, a pound,
a half-pound, and five solidi. Five solidi in this scale should be ¼
lb., and in wheat-grains the scale would be 6912, 3456, and 1728. 1728
wheat-grains is 5 solidi of 12 denarii of 28·8.
[139] Capitulare Mantuanum, s. 9, ‘De moneta: ut nullus post Kalendas
Augustas istos dinarios quos modo habere visi sumus dare audeat aut
recipere: si quis hoc fecerit, vannum nostrum conponat.’
[140] _Beiträge zur Geschichte des Geld- und Münzwesens in Deutschland._
[141] Forty argentei or drachmæ to the solidus would have meant a ratio
of about 1:30.
[142] _Polyptique d’Irminon_, Introduction, i. 151. See also No. 82 of
St. Gall Charters (Wastmann, i. p. 78), in which is an annual payment of
‘i bovem v solidos valentem’ sub anno A.D. 778.
[143] Pertz, p. 85.
[144] Pertz, p. 114.
[145] Pertz, p. 116.
[146] Pertz, p. 72. Refusing to receive the new denarii must have meant
as 12 to the solidus, for the new denarii themselves were heavier than
the old ones, 32 wheat-grains instead of 28·8.
[147] Pertz, p. 494. _Karoli II. Edictum Pistense_, A.D. 864: Ut in
omni regno nostro non amplius vendatur libra auri purissime cocti, nisi
duodecim libris argenti de novis et meris denariis.
Illud vero aurum quod coctum quidem fuerit, sed non tantum ut ex
deauratura fieri possit eo libra una de auro vendatur _decem_ libris
argenti de novis et meris denariis.
[148] _Traité de Numismatique du Moyen Age_, par Arthur Engel (Paris,
1891), vol. i. pp. 329-332.
[149] Sohm, in his preface to the Ripuarian law in Pertz, against his own
former opinion, concludes that clause xxxvi. did go back to the sixth
century, and was originally a part of the Lex (p. 188).
[150] See Richthofen’s preface to the Frisian Laws in Pertz, p. 631.
[151] They appear in the ‘_Additio Sapientium_,’ Tit. ii., clauses lxiii.
and lxxviii.
[152] ‘Inter Wisaram et Laubachi, duo denarii novi solidus est.’
[153] ‘Inter Laubachi et inter Flehi, tres denarii novæ monetæ solidum
faciunt.’
[154] ‘Inter Flehi et Sincfalam solidus est duo denarii et dimidius ad
novam monetam.’ That the word _denarius_ was applied to gold as well
as silver coins, see mention of the ‘gold penninck’ of Gondebald in
_Chronijck van Vrieslandt_, _sub_ A.D. 739.
[155] ‘Inter Laubachi et Wisaram weregildus nobilis 106 solidi et duo
denarii, liberi 53 solidi et denarium, liti 26 solidi et dimidius et
dimidius tremissis.’
[156] ‘Si nobilis [_or_ liber _or_ litus] nobilem occiderit, 80 solidos
componat; de qua muleta duæ partes ad hæredem occisi, tertia ad
propinquos ejus proximos pertineat … liberum solidos 53 et unum denarium
solvat … litum 27 solidos uno denario minus componat domino suo, et
propinquis occisi solidos 9 excepta tertia parte unius denarii.’
[157] ‘Inter Fli et Sincfalam weregeldus nobilis 100 solidi, liberi 50,
liti 25 (solidi denarii 3 novæ monetæ).’
[158] ii. lxxxiv.
[159] Tit. vi.
[160] Engel’s _Traité de Numismatique du Moyen Age_, i. 233 and 329.
[161] Martini’s _Manuale de Metrologia_, _sub_ ‘Emden.’ And compare
Ridgeway, p. 871. He shows that in Italy and Sicily 10 sheep = 1 cow.
[162] It is true that in the clauses trebling the amounts for wounds it
is not directly stated that the _wergelds_ were also trebled; but the use
of the words in Tit. I., ‘_in simplo_,’ suggests that it may have been
so; whilst the facts that the triple payment for the loss, _e.g._ of the
eye, which in the title _De Dolg_ was a half wergeld, would otherwise
exceed the full wergeld, and that, in the one case in which in the ‘De
Dolg’ the whole wergeld was payable, the amount in the Additio is the
_treble_ wergeld, make it almost certain that it was so, otherwise the
injury would be paid for at three times the value of a man’s life.
[163] 4608 × 3 = 13824, _i.e._ 160 solidi of 86·4 wheat-grains. The
wergeld of the Island of Gotland was also 3 gold marks or 160 solidi
of Merovingian standard. See also on the whole question Dr. Brunner’s
article ‘Nobiles und Gemeinfreie der Karolingischen Volksrechte’ in
_Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung_ &c., vol. xix.
[164] It would exactly equal 200 of the local solidi of two tremisses at
a ratio of 1:8, or 160 solidi of 80 wheat-grains instead of 86·4.
[165] Pertz, p. 83.
[166] Pertz, p. 84.
[167] Pertz, p. 34.
[168] Pertz, p. 84.
[169] Pertz, p. 118.
[170] See Du Cange _sub voce_ ‘Pecunia,’ and the cases there mentioned in
which the word = _pecudes_, _grex_, &c.
[171] See _Études sur la Lex dicta Francorum Chamavorum et sur ‘Les
Francs du Pays d’Amor,’_ par Henri Froidevaux. Paris, 1891, chap. ii.
[172] It has already been stated that the wergeld of the Island of
Gotland was three gold marks or 160 Merovingian solidi. But owing to the
late date of the Gotland laws it cannot be regarded as certain that the
amount was the same at the date of the Ripuarian laws.
[173] The depreciation in weight cannot have been the result of ignorance
of the Roman standard. We learn from the excellent table given by
Montelius in his _Remains from the Iron Age of Scandinavia_ that the gold
solidi of the Eastern Empire found their way into the Islands of Gotland,
Oland, and Bornholm in considerable numbers, between A.D. 395 and 518.
He shows that, while no silver coins of the Republic or before Nero have
been found in Scandinavia, coins belonging to the silver currency of Rome
after Nero found their way northwards in considerable numbers. Of Roman
coins A.D. 98-192 only four gold coins are known to have been found and
2304 silver coins. Then the gold currency begins, and of dates between
A.D. 235-395, sixty-four gold coins have been found and only one solitary
silver coin. Lastly came the gold currency of the solidus of Constantine
and his successors A.D. 395-518, and of this period 286 gold coins and
one silver coin are recorded as having been found in Scandinavia. It
is clear, then, that the Roman standard as well as the Roman system of
division of the lb. was known in the North. For a long period no doubt
the chief trade of the Baltic was with the Byzantine Empire and the East.
[174] _Die Entstehungszeit der älteren Gulathingslög_ von Dr. Konrad
Maurer, p. 5.
[175] The Reksthane is an official, and quite a different person from the
Bónde.
[176] The Árborinn man seems to be the same as the Aettborinn man, _i.e._
‘a man born in a kindred.’
[177] Elsewhere called the Odal-born-man.
[178] The hauld seems to have been the same as the odal-born man.
[179] See also the Frostathing Law IV. 31, in which in a similar case the
person is outlawed.
[180] The Nefgildi-men include the slayer’s mother’s father, daughter’s
son, mother’s brother, sister’s son, father’s sister’s son, mother’s
sister’s sons, son’s daughter’s son, daughter’s daughter’s son, brother’s
daughter’s son, sister’s daughter’s son.
[181] 4608 × 30 = 138240, and this divided by 8 = 17280 w.g. of gold,
_i.e._ 200 gold solidi of 86·4 w.g.
[182] The following is from the _Venedotian Code_, i. p. 179. ‘The
ecclesiastical law says that no son is to have the patrimony but the
eldest born to the father by the married wife: the law of Howell,
however, adjudges it to the youngest son as well as to the oldest (_i.e._
all the sons), and decides that sin of the father or his illegal act is
not to be brought against a son as to his patrimony.’ Bastards were not
excluded till the Statute of Rothllan.
[183] ‘Geschlecht und Verwandtschaft im alt-norwegischen Rechte,’ in the
_Zeitschrift für Social- und Wirthschaftsgeschichte_, vol. vii. (Weimar).
To this essay I am much indebted.
[184] Some authorities infer from this that the _parents_ alone were put
in the grave. K. von Maurer thinks _only the children_, and apologises
for it as ‘nur eine aus grauer Vorzeit überlieferte Antiquität.’
[185] Skåne, being only divided from the island of Zealand by the Sound,
during the Viking period belonged to Denmark. It afterwards became a
Swedish province, being finally ceded by Denmark in 1658.
[186] The various views upon the relation of the two versions to each
other are very usefully discussed in the introduction to M. Beauchet’s
_Loi de Vestrogothie_ (Paris, 1894), pp. 67-75. The Latin version was
published in 1846 at Copenhagen as Vol. I. of the _Samling af Danske
Love_ and both Latin and Danish versions in Dr. Schlyter’s _Corpus Juris
Sueo-Gotorum antiqui_, Lund. 1859.
[187] See Du Cange, _s. v._ ‘Moventes’ = _pecudes_.
[188] ‘Filius-familias’ in another MS.
[189] As to the _fælagh_ or partnership between husband and wife, see
the Gulathing Law, 53. The word _fælagh_ seems to be equivalent to the
‘_definitio_’ of the Latin text, the _definitio_ of the property being
made at the time of the marriage. The word seems to be allied to the
English word ‘fellowship.’ See Skeat, _sub_ ‘fellow,’ who refers it to
Icelandic ‘felag,’ literally ‘a laying together of property.’
[190] See _Untersuchungen zur Erbenfolge &c._, Julius Ficker, ii. p.
143: ‘Gulathingsbuch und Frostathingsbuch kennen keinen Eintritt der
Sohnessöhne in das volle Recht des Parens.’
[191] Beauchet, p. 60.
[192] Addition F. 1.
[193] _Skanska Stadsrätten_, s. 43.
[194] See I. s. 92 of the Danish version. The word Manbötær = _mulcta
homicidii_, Schlyter, Gloss. _sub voce_.
[195] See _Ancient Laws of Scotland_, preface, p. 42.
[196] _Ibid._ i. 8.
[197] These extracts are abridged and put into modern English.
[198] Compare the colpindach with the Irish ‘colpach heifer.’ In the
_Crith Gabhlach_, p. 300, the Irish text has the word _colpdaig_
translated ‘colpach heifer.’ Probably the xxix should be ixˣˣ, _i.e._
180. See _Ancient Laws of Scotland_, p. 270 (red paging), as to the next
clause.
[199] ‘Oc-thigernd’ = ‘Jung herr,’ Windisch, p. 757.
[200] _Scotland under her early Kings_, i. p. 258 _n._, and ii. p. 307.
[201] _Ancient Laws of Scotland_, i. p. 233.
[202] _History of English Law_, Pollock and Maitland, i. pp. 145 and 202.
There is an elaborate comparison of this Scotch treatise with Glanville’s
in the _Ancient Laws of Scotland_ commencing at p. 136 (red), which is
very helpful.
[203] _Book of Deer_, preface, p. lxxxi. Toshach (toisech). The two
officers in a townland were the _mormaer_ and the _toisech_. _Ced_ in
Irish = hundred. Tosh-_ced_-erach possibly may have meant ‘head of the
hundred.’
[204] See _infra_, c. xi.
[205] Robertson’s _Historical Essays_, p. 47.
[206] See preface to the _Ancient Laws of Scotland_.
[207] Gulathing law, s. 152.
[208] See Windisch, _Wörterbuch_, sub voce ‘_ter-fochrice_,’ also
‘_fo-chraic_.’
[209] Vol. i. p. 655.
[210] This passage is from the last clause in the so-called treaty
between Edward and Guthrum, ‘when the English and Danes fully took to
peace and to friendship, and the Witan also who were afterwards, oft and
unseldom that same renewed and increased with good.’ Thorpe, p. 71; and
see Schmid’s _Einleitung_, p. xlii.
[211] 120_s._ of 5_d._ = 50_s._ of 12_d._
[212] Three marks are double 12 ores.
[213] See the instances of services of sochemen given by Mr. Round in
his invaluable chapter on the Domesday book in his _Feudal England_,
pp. 30-34, from the ‘Ely placitum’ of 1072-1075: ‘Qui _quotiens abbas
preceperit_ in anno arabunt suam terram’ &c. And again _quotienscunque
ipse præceperit_ in anno arabunt’ &c. These are services of the
sochemanni of Suffolk and Norfolk ‘qui non possunt recedere.’
[214] Cf. Ine, 74. The xl_s._ to be paid for the ‘Waliscus’ slave who had
committed homicide may be double value by way of penalty.
[215] Laws of Cnut, s. 63 and s. 66.
[216] Mr. Keary’s Introduction to the Catalogue of the Coins in the
British Museum, Anglo-Saxon series, vol. ii. p. lxxxi.
[217] Engel, vol. ii. p. 849 et seq.
[218] Introduction, vol. ii. p. lvii.
[219] The word is used in the sense of mint-master or money coiner. See
Du Cange, _sub voce_ ‘Monetarius.’
[220] The Anglo-Saxon pound of 240 pence or 364 grammes divided by
fifteen = 24·2 grammes.
[221] The normal weight of the English penny of 32 wheat-grains was 1·51
grammes. The coins of Cnut’s predecessors sometimes fully reached this
standard, though oftener somewhat below it. The exact weight of 1/20 of
the Danish ore would be 1·21 grammes, and Cnut’s silver pence seem to
aim at this weight. Out of 574 silver pence of Cnut described in the
Catalogue of the British Museum 400 weigh between ·972 and 1·23 grammes.
Only 1½ per cent. are of greater weight. Ethelred’s silver pence were
not by any means generally of full standard of 32 wheat-grains or 1·51
grammes, but still, out of 339 in the British Museum 25 per cent. are
fairly up to this standard and 90 per cent. are above the weight of the
new silver pence of Cnut--1/20 of his ore. Cnut also reduced the _size_
of the pence. See the B. M. Catalogue plates.
[222] ‘Grith’ seems to be a Danish word of nearly the same meaning as
‘frith.’ See Schmid’s Glossary, _sub voce_.
[223] This is in accordance with Ine, 6.
[224] Laws of Ethelred, ix. (Thorpe, p. 145).
[225] Thorpe, p. 124.
[226] MS. G. British Museum, Cott. Nero A. 1. fol. 5.
[227] Thorpe, p. 141, Schmid, _Anhang iv._
[228] Compare Æthelstan, iv. 4.
[229] This, from the Kentish Laws, was correctly quoted.
[230] Schmid, _Anhang xii._
[231] Pollock and Maitland, i. p. 20. But see Laws of King Edmund, s. 4,
‘On Blood-shedding.’ ‘Also I make known that I will not have to “_socn_”
in my “hirede” that man who sheds man’s blood before he has undertaken
ecclesiastical “bot” and made “bot” to the kindred,’ &c. See also in s. 6
the use of the words ‘_mund-brice_ and _Ham-socn_.’
[232] Another reading has xxx. See Schmid, p. 206. The Latin version has
xxv, and the quotation in the Laws of Henry I also has xxv.
[233] 25 × 240 = 6000 pence = 1200 Wessex scillings of 5_d._
[234] Catalogue of English Coins, Anglo-Saxon series. Introduction, p.
xxxi, to vol. ii.
[235] Thorpe (p. 75) appends this clause to the so-called Laws of Edward
and Guthrum. But Schmid considers it as a fragment and places it in his
_Anhang vii._
[236] Schmid, _Anhang vii._ 2; Thorpe, p. 79.
[237] A ceorl’s wergeld is cclxvi thrymsas, _i.e._ cc scillings by
Mercian law. 266⅔ × 3 = 800 pence or 200 Mercian scyllings of 4 pence.
[238] From the text of MS. D.
[239] The fragment itself is a combination of two or more. But the
statement of wergelds in _thrymsas_ seems to unite them. Schmid also
points out that the _eorl_ had not yet superseded the ealdorman. See
_Einleitung_, p. lxv.
[240] 2000 thrymsas of 3_d._ equalled 1200 Wessex scillings of 5_d._, so
that the ceorl with five hides to the king’s utware became a twelve-hynde
man. There is no allusion to the six-hynde status as a halfway step
towards the gesithcund status. And the use of the word ‘gesithcund’ seems
to throw back the original date of these clauses to that of Ine’s law,
the word not being used in later laws. See Schmid’s _Glossary_, sub voce
‘Gesith.’
[241] _I.e._ of pure silver. Compare the same phrase ‘de novis et meris
denariis’ in the _Edictum Pistense_, A.D. 864, quoted _supra_, p. 191, n.
[242] See _supra_, p. 344.
[243] _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, vol. iv. p. 227.
[244] See _supra_, p. 345.
[245] Ine came to the throne in A.D. 688, and Alfred’s treaty with
Guthrum was in A.D. 880.
[246] See Schmid’s Glossary _sub voce_ ‘Eideshülfe.’ There is only one
mention of oaths of so many hides in the later Anglo-Saxon laws, viz. in
Alfred, s. 11, in which it is stated that a woman must clear herself from
a charge of previous unchastity with 60 hides.
[247] The monk’s oath was one fourth of the priest’s in value: so 400
_argentei_ = one fourth of 800 _sicli_.
[248] See Schmid’s introduction, where he states his reasons for placing
Ine’s Dooms before Alfred’s in his edition of the Laws.
[249] This is repeated in Henry I. lxix.
[250] Schmid, _Anhang ii._
[251] Schmid, Glossary, _sub voc._ ‘Die Britischen Einwohner von
Cumberland.’ But the mention of York is conclusive.
[252] See Schmid’s note on this passage, and see also Liebermann’s
translation.
[253] Thorpe, p. 150; Schmid, _Anhang i._
[254] The only mark of the geographical position of the district is that
in the final clause: ‘Formerly the Went-sætas belonged to the Dun-sætas,
but more properly they belong to the West Saxons; there they shall give
tribute and hostages.’
[255] Translated in the Latin version by ‘corium,’ the meaning probably
being that 12 scillings would buy off a scourging.
[256] In the Laws of Henry I. (lxx. s. 5) the ‘theow-wealh’ is translated
‘servus Waliscus,’ and is worth double the ordinary slave, unless the
amount be a double penalty.
[257] The usual explanation of these terms is that they are derived
from the number of shillings in the wergeld. Mr. Earle in his valuable
_Handbook to the Land Charters_ &c. (p. 1) considers ‘hynde’ to be an
old form of ‘ten’ and to refer to the number of soldiers of whom the
twelve-hynde and six-hynde men were captains. ‘The former was a captain
of 120 and the latter of 60.’ Neither of these explanations seems to me
to be satisfactory.
[258] This view that the single oath of the twelve-hyndeman was reckoned
as a 10 hide oath is confirmed by the translation in the Latin of the
_Quadripartitus_ of Ine’s Laws, s. 46. The Anglo-Saxon ‘þonne sceal he be
lx hyda onsacan,’ is translated by ‘tunc debet per lx hidas _i.e._ _per
vi homines_ abnegare.’ And in s. 19 ‘potest jurare pro lx hidis _i.e._
_pro hominibus vi_.’ Schmid remarks on these passages: ‘Hiernach würde
also jeder Eideshelfer 10 Hiden vertreten.’
[259] Schmid, p. 157; Thorpe, p. 97.
[260] _Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ_, c. 8, s. 2; _Ath. L._ vi.
[261] _Decretum Episcoporum et aliorum sapientum de Kancia de pace
observanda._ _Ath. L._ iii.
[262] Birch, No. 102, A.D. 701.
[263] _Ib._ 113, A.D. 705.
[264] _Ib._ 142, A.D. 725.
[265] _Hist. Eccl._ lib. iii. c. 24.
[266] _Glossary_, sub voce ‘Gesith,’ and see Bede, iii. 14 and 22, iv. 4
and 10, and v. 4 and 5.
[267] Bede, ii. c. ix.
[268] _English Village Community_, chap. v.
[269] See _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_, New Series,
vol. xiv.
[270] _English Village Community_, p. 117 _et seq._
[271] Birch, 412.
[272] Roxburgh Club, p. 138.
[273] Compare _ærdian_, to inhabit; and so _bur_bærde and _theow_bærde,
as below.
[274] About A.D. 995. Cod. Dip. 1290.
[275] _Cod. Dip._ mcccliv. See also _Liber Eliensis_, p. 120.
[276] Alfred, s. 37.
[277] See _supra_, pp. 180-185.
[278] The difference in spelling will be noticed. The Kentish spelling is
mostly _scætt_. Elsewhere the spelling is _sceatt_.
[279] Schmid, _Anhang vii._ p. 398.
[280] It cannot be right, I think, to reason the other way with Schmid,
that as there were 30,000 sceatts in the King’s wergeld of 120 pounds,
there must have been 250 sceatts in the pound and 4·166 sceatts in the
Mercian scilling instead of four.
[281] Catalogue &c., Introduction, p. xviii.
[282] ‘We must remember further that many of the coins of the Kings of
Mercia were probably likewise struck in Kent, and that when we find,
as we do, the same moneyers’ names occurring on the coins of a King of
Mercia … and on the coins of Ecgbeorht, the probability is that these
moneyers were Kentishmen who struck first for one master of their country
and then for the other’ (_Ib._ p. xvii).
[283] See Schmid’s _Glossary_, sub voce.
[284] See Laws of Ethelbert, ss. 77, 78 and 79, and 83.
[285] In translating Luke xx. 24 and Mark xii. 15, ‘Show me a penny,’ the
word used to translate ‘denarius’ is _skatt_.
Again, Luke vii. 41, the two debtors, one owing 500 and the other 50
denarii, are translated by Ulphilas as owing ‘skatte finfhunda’ and
‘skatte finftiguns.’
Again in John xii. 5, ‘Why was not the ointment sold for 300 denarii?’
‘ccc skatti’ are the words used, and so also in the parallel passage Mark
xi. 5, ‘thrijahunda skatti.’
In all these cases it seems to be clear that the _skatt_ is the _coin_.
And that it was a silver coin seems to be shown by the use by Ulphilas of
the word _skatt_ in reference to the ‘thirty pieces of silver’ in Matt.
xxvii. 6-9.
[286] The word occurs seven times in the five Gothic records from Naples
and Arezzo generally appended to editions of ‘Ulfilas.’ In the edition
of Massmann (Stuttgart, 1857) see vol. ii. p. 810. In that of Heyne and
Wrede (Paderborn, 1896) see p. 227 &c.
[287] Schmid, _Anhang x._ p. 404; Thorpe, p. 76.
[288] This may be doubtful: _Sceatta scilling-rim_, ‘gold to the worth of
600 scillings,’ Grein, ii. p. 408; _sceatta_, gen. plural of ‘sceatt,’
_nummus, pecunia_. Grein, ii. p. 405.
[289] British Museum Catalogue, Anglo-Saxon series, vol. i. xiii.
[290] See Schmid’s _Glossary_, sub ‘Geldrechnung,’ p. 594. The inference
seems to be too strong to be disregarded. Comparing s. 54 with ss. 70-72,
the great toe is valued at 10 scillings, _i.e._ half the value of the
thumb in s. 54, viz. 20 scillings. And it is stated in s. 54 that the
thumb nail is worth 3 scillings, and in s. 72 that the toe nail is to be
paid for at 30 scætts, which would be half 3 scillings of 20 sceatts. The
other toes are said in s. 71 to be respectively worth half the fingers.
The finger nail in s. 71 at 1 scilling compares with the other toe nails
at 10 scætts in s. 72--again one half. Presuming that the scale of one
half is maintained throughout, 30 scætts is half 3 scillings and 10
scætts half one scilling. The scilling, therefore, must be 20 scætts.
This conclusion is strengthened by the graduated scale of payments in
ss. 33-36, viz. 50 scætts (_i.e._ 1½ scilling) 3, 4, 10, 20 scillings.
See also s. 16, where the scale is 30, 50 (? 60) sceatts and 6 scillings
(120 scætts). In ss. 58-60 a bruise is 1 scilling, covered 30 scætts,
uncovered 20 scætts. It seems to be impossible to make these figures
comport with the Mercian scilling of 4 scætts or the Wessex of 5 scætts
or the Salic solidus of 40 scætts. The conclusion must be that the
Kentish scilling was of 20 scætts.
[291] 576 divided by 10 = 57·6, _i.e._ two tremisses of 28·8 wheat grains.
[292] Alfred’s words were: ‘But those things which I met with, either
of the days of Ine my kinsman, or of Offa King of the Mercians, or of
Æthelbryht, who first among the English race received baptism, those
which seemed to me the rightest, those I have here gathered together and
omitted the others.’
[293] British Museum Cott. Nero A. 1. fol. 5, and _supra_, p. 346.
[294] British Museum, _ibid._ fol. 33 b.
[295] See Gulathing, 178.
[296] Compare Cnut’s secular laws, s. 59, on _Borh-bryce_. In both
passages the additional words ‘and three to the archbishop’ do not seem
to be taken from Kentish law. It is obvious from the fragment ‘Of Grith
and of Mund’ that it was well known that in Kentish law ‘the mund-bryce
of the King and the archbishop were the same.’
[297] See also _Anhang iv._ Schmid, p. 385.
[298] See Schmid, _Glossary_, sub ‘Geldrechnung,’ p. 594.
[299] Konrad von Maurer’s ‘Ueber Angelsächsische Rechtsverhältnisse,’ in
the _Kritische Ueberschau_, vol. iii. p. 48.
[300] Compare the ‘octogild’ and ‘novigild’ of the Alamannic and other
laws. The literal meaning of ‘xii gylde’ seems to be payable with ‘twelve
times the gylde.’
[301] The division of the words in the MS. is as follows: ‘Gif cyninges
ambiht smið oþþe laadrinc mannan of slehð medumanleod gelde forgelde.’
[302] So also Grimm in his _Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer_, p. 653,
‘dimidio, nicht moderato, wie Wilk. übersetzt.’ Compare ‘medeme mynster,’
_supra_, p. 346, and ‘medeme thegn,’ Cnut, ii. 71, s. 2.
[303] Possibly the King’s servants were otherwise exempt for injuries
done in carrying out their work.
[304] Cf. _Book of Aicill_, p. 267, where injury inflicted in _quick
driving or at work_ has only a half fine; ‘the excitement of the work
or of quick driving takes the other half fine off them.’ See also the
elaborate rules with regard to accidents of the smith in his smithy, p.
187 &c. The general rule stated is ‘that the person who plies the sledge
on the anvil is exempt from penalties for injuries arising from the work
he is engaged on;’ and again ‘if either the sledge or anvil break, he
is exempt for injuries to idlers, and he pays one third compensation to
fellow labourers, &c.’ Clerical influence may perhaps be recognised in
both the Brehon and Kentish clauses.
[305] That the soul-scot in later times was paid at the open grave see
Ethelred, v. 12, vi. 20, ix. 13; C. E. 13.
[306] Compare s. 86 and 87, where _ealne weorðe_ means a ‘whole worth’ of
an esne, and contrast the ‘medume leodgild’ of 100 scillings payable as
bot by the lender with the ‘ealne leod’ payable by the slayer.
[307] That the _esne_ was very near in position to the ‘theow’ see Alf.
43, where Church holidays are to be given to ‘all freemen but _not to
theow-men and esne work-men_’--‘butan þeowum mannum & esne-wyrhtum.’
[308] Liebermann considers that the 300 and 100 scillings are the wergeld
of the eorlcundman and the freeman. His translation reads: ‘welcher
steht im 300-Scillwergelde’ and ‘welcher im 100-Scillwergelde steht.’
Whether these payments are the wergelds is the point at issue. Schmid,
in his note to this passage, favours the view that 300 scillings was the
_half_-wergeld of the eorl and 100 scillings the half-wergeld of the
freeman.
[309] xxxv. 5. ‘Si servus alienus aut laetus hominem ingenuum occiderit,
ipse homicida pro medietatem compositionis illius hominis occisi
parentibus tradatur, et dominus servi aliam medietatem compositionis se
noverit soluiturum.’
[310] ‘Ceorlian,’ to marry a husband; ‘wifian,’ to marry a wife.
Bosworth, _sub voce_.
[311] _Supra_, p. 259.
[312] _Supra_, p. 176.
[313] _Supra_, p. 199.
[314] _Supra_, p. 169.
[315] In the Bavarian and Saxon laws the _litus_ was paid for at one
fourth the wergeld of the _liber_. The inference from this might
strengthen the view that the Kentish wergeld of the ceorl could hardly be
as low as 100 scillings.
[316] I adhere to this view after careful consideration of the elaborate
argument in the _Die Gemeinfreien der Karolingischen Volksrechte_, von
Philipp Heck (Halle, 1900), in reply to the criticism by H. Brunner in
the _Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte_, xix Band, 1899.
[317] 1200 scillings of 4_d._ with one fourth added = 1200 scillings of
5_d._
[318] _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, i. 225-6.
[319] 60 + 40 Kentish scillings = 1200 + 800 scætts. The average 1000
sceatts = 200 Wessex scillings of 5 scætts.
[320] _Supra_, p. 265.
[321] _Supra_, p. 367.
[322] _Supra_, p. 322; and Laws of Alfred, s. 27 and 38.
[323] _Supra_, pp. 415-416.
[324] This is not the place to enter into the details of the Kentish
holdings, but reference may be made by way of example to the 5½ ‘sulings’
of ‘Christelet’ in the _Black Book of St. Augustine_. The suling is still
the unit for services and payments. The ‘_Suling de Fayreport_’ contains
300 acres (and was probably originally a suling and a half), but it is
divided into 11 holdings, 8 of 25 acres each and 3 of 33⅓ acres each. Six
of the eleven holdings are still occupied by persons bearing the name
of ‘de Fayreport’ or the ‘heredes’ of such persons, and probably the
others may belong to relatives. The ‘_Suling de Ores_’ is, on the other
hand, divided into about 40 quite irregular holdings, varying from less
than an acre to 44 acres. Several are still occupied by ‘heredes’ of
persons of the family ‘de Ores.’ (Cottonian MSS. Faustina, A. 1, British
Museum, fol. 567 _et seq._) The manor ‘de Ores’ is in the list of those
afterwards disgavelled: see Elton’s _Tenures of Kent_, p. 400.
[325] See Mr. Round’s interesting chapter, ‘Sokemen and their Services.’
(_Feudal England_, pp. 28-34.)
[326] _Domesday Book and beyond_, p. 306 _et seq._
[327] _Ibid._ pp. 204-209.
[328] Compare Brunner’s chapter 32, ‘Adel und Freie,’ in his _Deutsche
Rechtsgeschichte_, p. 247 _et seq._, with _Das Römische Recht in den
Germanischen Volksstaaten_, von Prof. Dr. Alfred von Halban (Breslau,
1899), pp. 132, 207, 262, 280, and 294. And see Dahn’s chapter ‘Der
Adel,’ p. 88 _et seq._, in his _Die Könige der Germanen_, Band vi.
(Leipzig, 1885).
[329] Compare the tendency to triple divisions in the Kentish Laws:
_supra_, p. 465.
[330] Marculfe, ii. 18 and 16. _Formulæ Lindenbrogianæ_, 16. And see F.
de Coulanges’ useful chapter on ‘Organisation judiciaire chez les Francs’
in _Quelques problèmes d’histoire_ (1885).
INDEX.
_Aillts and Alltuds_ (strangers in blood) under Cymric law, 50, 51;
kindreds of, recognised at fourth generation, 52
_Alamannic Laws_, 172-178;
wergelds, 172-175;
value of animals, 178
_Alcuin_ uses Roman currency, 19, 184
_Alfred, K._, his laws, 370-377, 392, 396;
compact with Guthrum, 352-355, 500
_Alod of land_, a family holding, 508;
Lex Salica ‘de alodis,’ 151;
Ripuarian law, 170;
Lex Angliorum et Werinorum, 226
_Ancilla_ as currency, see ‘Cumhal’
_Anglii and Werini_, Laws of, 224-228;
Wergelds of _liber_ 200 _sol._, 225;
triple wergeld of the _Adaling_, 225
_Anglo-Saxon Custom_, 321 _et seq._;
from Norman point of view, 321-336;
from Danish point of view, 337-350;
from Viking or Northmen’s point of view, 351-368;
from early custom (Alfred’s Laws), 370-377;
Archbishop Egbert’s Dialogue, 377-385;
King Ine’s Dooms, 386-439;
Kentish Laws, 441-495;
Twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes, 406-416;
Gesithcund and Ceorlisc classes, 417-436;
Six-hynde stranger class, 371, 392, 396;
position of wife, 326
_Anglo-Saxon Wergelds_, position of paternal and maternal parentes in
payment of, 322, 323, 328, 358;
of thane or twelve-hynde man, 325;
of ‘freeman,’ Dane and English, 326, 349, 353-55;
of ‘cyrlisci vel villani,’ 328;
of ‘villanus et socheman’ in Danelaga, 331-332;
of ‘ceorl on gafol-land’ and Danish ‘lysing,’ 353, 355;
how paid, 329, 357-59
_Animals_, value of as currency:
Ripuarian, 171;
Saxon, 215, 217, 221;
Alamannic, 178;
Cymric cow 3 oz., 48, 49;
Irish _bo_ 1 oz., 97;
Frisian dog, 202
_Argenteus_ (silver drachma) of Roman currency.
See ‘Currency’
_Bavarian Laws_, 175-177;
wergelds, 174
_Beowulf_, evidence of, as to feuds, 56-72;
as ‘sister’s son’ becomes chieftain, 68;
as to marriage, 71, 72
_Borhbryce_, fine for breach of pledge or protection, like mundbryce,
347;
of various classes, 377
_Bullock_ as currency in Saxon Laws, 217
_Burgundian Laws_, 121-125, 527;
original wergeld of 160 sol., 167;
Roman and Christian influence on, 527
_Burh-bryce_ (_Burg-bryce_) (breach of fence of precinct), of various
classes, 372, 377, 387
_Cæsar_, evidence of, as to Gallic wergelds, 115-120;
and on Gallic landholding, 116;
as to division of classes, 528
_Canones Hibernenses_, 101
_Canones Wallici_, 105-109
_Ceorl_ = man--husband, 482;
so man with household and flet or precinct, 371, 394, 482--‘who sits
on gafol-land’ twy-hynde, 353-355, 361;
ceorlisc class mostly gafolgeldas, and twy-hynde, 373;
once could rise to be twelve-hynde, 366, 503;
accused of theft, 388;
harbouring a fugitive, 390;
his mundbyrd in Kent, see ‘Mundbyrd’
_Chamavi_, laws of, 229-231;
wergeld of _ingenuus_ 200 sol., 229;
triple wergeld of ‘Homo Francus,’ 229
_Charlemagne_, conquest of Italy, 181;
becomes emperor, 19, 181;
and issues _nova moneta_ in silver solidi of 12_d._ and at 1:4 with
gold, 182-194;
conquers Frisians and Saxons, 182, 195
_Cnut._ His greater Scandinavia, 339;
his ore of 1/15th lb. or 16_d._, 341;
his smaller silver pence, 343
_Compurgation_, under Frisian law, 203-205;
under Anglo-Saxon law, see ‘Hyndens’ and see ‘Werborh’
_Congildones_ = gegildas, sureties in lieu of kinsmen, 323, 389, 415
_Cows_, as currency, 1.
In Cymric law, 49;
Irish, 97;
Alamannic, 178;
value of, see ‘Animals’;
Norse, 247-250;
Bretts and Scots, 307
_Cumhal_ in Irish currency, 97-98 = female slave and ‘ancilla’ of the
_Canones Hibernenses and Wallici_, 101, 109
_Currency_, in oxen: ox-unit of Professor Ridgeway, 2;
in cows, Cymric, 1, 49;
Irish, 97;
Norse, 247-250;
Bretts and Scots, 307;
in cumhals, ancillæ or female slaves, 97-98, 101, 109;
in gold torques, &c., 17;
Anglo-Saxon in silver _sceatts_ of 28·8 w.g. or 20 to the Roman ounce,
12, 443-455;
in silver _pence_ of 32 w.g. or 20 to the Frankish and Norman ounce,
12;
gold and silver _mancus_ of 30_d._, 18, 329;
Mercian _scilling_ of 4_d._, 12, 363;
Wessex _scilling_ of 5_d._, 12, 325;
Kentish _scilling_ of 20_d._, or two gold tremisses, 443-455;
Northumbrian _thrymsa_ of 3_d._, 362-368;
Danish in marks and half-marks, 16, 353-354;
Cnut’s in ores of 16_d._, 306, 341, 343 (see ‘Ore’);
Imperial in gold solidi and tremisses of 32 w.g., 5, 6;
in silver sicli (didrachmæ) and argentei (drachmæ), 184, 382;
Merovingian in gold solidi and tremisses of 28·8 w.g., 9;
afterwards in silver tremisses, 10, 180, 443-445;
Charlemagne’s _nova moneta_ in silver solidi of 12_d._ of 32 w.g., 10,
11, 186, _et seq._;
of Norse laws in gold and silver marks, ores and ortugs at ratio 1:8,
233-238
_Cymric_ tribal custom as to galanas, 30;
fiscal unit for food-rents, the tref and treffgordd, 33-42;
strangers, how treated, 50-54;
as to marriage, 32;
galanas of several classes paid in cows, 46-55.
See ‘Gwely,’ ‘Galanas’
_Danelaga_, 331-332, 338, 522
_Ealdorman_ in judicial position, 387;
his burgbryce, 387;
his fightwite, 394;
his residence, 420
_Egbert_, Archbishop, Dialogue of, 377 _et seq._;
uses Roman currency, 20, 379;
wergeld of his monks, 382, 491;
value of their oaths, 379
_Eye, hand, and foot_, payments for, 175, 222, 225, 252, 300, 465, 489
_Fightwite_, fine for fighting within a person’s precinct or
jurisdiction, 328-332, 359, 393;
in a ceorl’s flet, 371, 394, 482
_Firma unius noctis_, mode of paying food-rents to chieftain, 41, 431
_Frankish Tribal Custom._
Wergeld of Lex Salica of 200 sol., 131-146;
division of classes, 147;
triple wergeld of officials, 148;
half wergeld of strangers, 149;
the Alod or family holding of _terra Salica_, 150;
the ‘_de alodis_,’ 151, 170, 226;
edict of Chilperic, 159;
Ripuarian Law, 163-171;
wergeld of 200 sol., 163;
division of classes, 165
_Fredus_, payment for breach of king’s peace, equivalent to A.S.
mundbryce or grithbryce, 488, 489
_Freedman_ (libertus) under Frankish Law, 168-170, 199;
under Bavarian Law, 175;
under Kentish Law, 478, 484.
And see ‘Læt’ and ‘Leysing’
_Frisian Laws_, 194-212;
wergeld of 160 sol., 167, 195, 201, 210;
ordeal under, 203-5
_Frith_, between Ethelred II. and Olaf, 349;
between Alfred and Guthrum, 352-355
_Frostathing Law_ (Ancient Norse), 238-276.
See ‘Norse Tribal Custom’
_Gafolgeldas_, tenants on others’ land paying gafol to their lord, with
twy-hynde wergelds, 353-355;
fighting in gafolgelda or gebur’s house, 394.
See ‘Twy-hynde’
_Galanas_ (Cymric death fine or wergeld), 30;
liability of kindred for, 30-32;
method of payment, 42-46;
amount of, 46-49;
of non-tribesmen goes to the lord, 54
_Gebur_, tenant of a yardland doing work and paying gafol to lord for
house and oxen, 422-429;
fighting in house of gafolgelda or gebur, 394
_Gegildas_ (see ‘Congildones’) sureties in lieu of kinsmen, 323, 389;
hyndens of frith-gegildas in the city, 415
_Gesithcund class_, in direct service to the king and twelve-hynde, 366;
in landed position with five hides to king’s utware, 369;
forfeit land if they neglect the fyrd, 391;
in their connection with land, 417 _et seq._;
sometimes evicted, 433
_Grith_, Danish for _frith_ or peace, 344-348;
grithbryce of English and mundbryce of Kentish law the same, 346;
extent in area, 348;
in duration of time, 346;
of different moots, 345
_Gulathing Law_, oldest Norse law, 238-276.
See ‘Norse Tribal Custom’
_Gwely_ (Cymric family holding of four generations), 21-30;
of non-tribesmen, 52
_Halsfang_, first part of wergeld paid to those ‘within the knee,’ 328,
329, 359
_Hide_ in agriculture of four yardlands, 423;
Mr. Corbett on tribal hidage, 424;
in pastoral stage, 424;
= _familia_ of Bede, also = _hiwisc_, 407;
also = ‘manentes et tributarii’ of Archbishop Egbert, 381, 408;
oaths reckoned in hides, 381, 408;
the 10-hide oath of the twelve-hyndeman, 411;
oath of himself and hynden of oath-helpers, 120;
hides, 411
_Hiwisc_ (family) of land = hide, 364, 381
_Homicide._ Within the family unavenged, 30, 63, 66, 164, 176, 241, 336;
by a slave, 108, 202, 333, 472, 474;
of a slave, 202, 333;
between kindreds caused blood-feud, see ‘Beowulf,’ or wergeld in lieu
of it. See ‘Wergeld’
_Hyndens_ of oath-helpers, 409;
of twelve-hynde and twy-hynde class, 409-411;
of city frith-gegildas, 415
_Ine, K._ Laws of, 386-439;
as to theft, 387-389;
burgbryce, 387;
ealdorman, 387-894;
gesithcund class, 388, 391;
six-hynde class, 392, 396;
gafolgeldas and geburs, 393;
ceorlisc class, 391, 396;
wealh and wylisc class, 397-405;
twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes, 400-417;
gesithcund and ceorlisc classes, 417-436;
comparison of Wessex and Mercian with continental wergelds, 436
_Irish Tribal Custom_, 73-120;
the Eric-fine consisting of (1) the _coirp-dire_, or body-price, of
seven cumhals, 74;
in Irish and Breton canons, 101 _et seq._;
(2) the _eneclann_, or honour-price, varies with rank, 75, 80-83, 92;
the hearths or kindreds liable, 76-80;
gradations in rank, 83-86;
grades of tenants, 86 _et seq._;
currency, 97
_Kentish Laws_, currency in scætts and scillings, 443-455;
scilling of 20 scætts or two gold tremisses, 450-455;
laws of Ethelbert, 455-466;
of Hlothære and Eadric, 467-476;
of Wihtræd, 477-481;
division of classes, 481-487;
Kentish wergelds, 487-492;
compared with Continental and Anglo-Saxon wergelds 492-495;
Kentish sulungs and yokes, 514-515;
gavelkind holdings, 515;
Kentish læts, 463, 484-486, 502
_Kindred_, solidarity of, 30, 45, 157, 276;
grades of, 22, 30, 76, 318;
disintegration of, 111, 124, 129, 162, 164;
emancipation from restraints of, 134, 158, 507;
power of, in East Anglia and Kent, 415, 416;
liability of, for wergeld, under Cymric custom, 42, 45;
Irish, 77-80;
Breton, 109;
Burgundian and Wisigothic, 121-130;
Salic Franks, 144, 164;
Frisian, 212;
Saxon, 216;
Norse, 246-257;
Scanian, 290, and see ‘Anglo-Saxon wergelds;’
groups of, holding land, Cymric gwely, 21-30;
Alod of _terra salica_, 150-162, 183;
Ripuarian _hereditas aviatica_, 171;
Norse odal-sharers, 271-275;
Scanian family holdings, 276-288;
Anglo-Saxon family holdings, 511-516
_King’s thane_, oath of, 353, 368, 390
_Læt_, in Kentish Law of three grades, 463, 484-486, 502.
See ‘Leysing’ and ‘Freedman’
_Leases for three successive lives_, tribal reason for, 524;
St. Oswald’s tenants, 525
_Leysing_ in Norse law, newly made freedman, his rett, 240;
his wergeld, 259;
his want of kindred and his rise by steps of three generations into
freedom, 260-267
_Leysing’s son_, great grandson of leysing in higher social position,
259, 268
_Litus_, Ripuarian, 168;
Frisian, 199, 201-207;
Saxon, 214, 215, 219, 224;
of Chamavi, 229
_Lombardic tribal custom_ compared with Scanian as to family holdings,
292-296
_London_, ‘De Institutis Lundonie,’ 337-344;
Port of the Greater Scandinavia in Cnut’s time, 339;
‘Judicia Civitatis Lundoniæ,’ 415
_Lysing_ (leysing of Norse law), with same wergeld as A. S. ‘Ceorl on
gafol land,’ 353-355, 501.
See ‘Leysing’
_Manbot_, payment for value of a man to his lord, 328-332, 359;
of freeman and of slave compared, 334-335;
of various classes, 392
_Mancus_, weight of 30 dwts., 18, 329
_Mark_, Norse gold and silver weight of eight ores or ounces, 234-237;
used in Frisia, 207;
half-marks of gold in compact between Alfred and Guthrum, 353;
27 marks of Charlemagne= 30 of old Norse and Merovingian, 256
_Marriage_, how regarded, 498;
under Cymric custom, 32;
in Beowulf, 69-72;
in Lex Salica, 146;
under Alamannic law, 177;
under Lex Saxonum, 216;
under Scanian law, 276-281;
under Lombardic law, 294;
under Laws of Bretts and Scots, 318;
under Kentish custom, 465-466
_Mercian_ law, fragments of, 360-369;
Mercian oaths, 360;
wergelds, 361;
rise of ceorl into thane, 366
_Merovingian_ kings, currency of, mostly in gold tremisses, see
‘Currency’
_Mina_, gold value of normal wergeld, 4;
ancient Eastern of 100 staters, 2, 7;
of 200 gold solidi, 6;
_Italica_ of 20 Roman ounces, 14, 491;
_Attica_ of 16 Roman ounces, 16, 233
_Mundbryce_ or _mundbyrd_ of king, 346, 377, 451;
of various classes, 377;
in Kent, 346, 452, 460, 476, 481, 488
_Norse tribal custom_, 238-276;
personal rett, 240;
wergelds how reckoned and paid, 242-258;
wergeld of the hauld odalman or typical freeman, 96;
cows = 200 sol., 259;
gradations in rank, 260-270;
the leysing or freedman, 261-267;
odal-sharers of odal land, 271-276, 284, 504, 508
_North peoples_ law, fragments of, 360-369;
wergelds in thrymsas (of 3_d._), 363;
wergeld of ‘hold’ double that of Saxon thane, 363
_Nova Moneta_ of Charlemagne, 11, 179-193, and see ‘Currency’
_Ordeal_ in absence of oaths of kinsmen, 166, 403, 413, 499;
under Frisian law, 203-205
_Ore_ or ounce of 20_d._;
Merovingian = Roman ounce of 20 silver tremisses of 28·8 w.g.
(1/12 lb. of 6912 w.g.), 10;
and so also Kentish scilling, 443-455;
Charlemagne’s and later Anglo-Saxon and Norman ore of 20 pence of
32 w.g. (1/12 lb. of 7680 w.g.), 11-13
_Ore_, Cnut’s of 16_d._ (1/15 Anglo-Saxon lb.), 306, 341;
divided by him into 20 smaller pence, 343;
used in Laws of Bretts and Scots, 306
_Ore_, Norse, of three _ortugs_ = 1/12 of Roman lb. 6912 w.g., 234-237
_Ortug_, of Scandinavia, ⅓ ounce = Greek stater, 233.
See ‘Ore’
_Ox_ as currency, 1, 2;
value of, see ‘Animals’
_Parage_, tenancy in, 513, 525
_Pound_, Roman of 6912 w.g., 8, 11, 18;
Charlemagne’s of 7680 w.g., 11, 18;
Anglo-Saxon and Norman of 7680 w.g., 12;
Northern lb. of two marks, 234
_Ratio between gold and silver_:
Norse of 1:8, 238;
Merovingian 1:10, 185;
Imperial, 1:12, 11;
Charlemagne’s (attempted), 1:4, 11, 189;
restored Frankish, 1:12, 11, 191;
Cymric, 1:12, 49;
Irish, 98;
Bretts and Scots, 1:8, 307
_Romanus possessor_, half wergeld of, 149, 167;
his _res propria_, 158, 162
_Saxon Laws_ (Lex Saxonum), 213-228;
wergeld of liber 160 sol., 214;
wergeld stated in silver, 214;
gold solidus of 2 tremisses or bullock, 217
_Scæt._
See ‘Currency’
_Scanian tribal custom._ The _lex Scania antiqua_, family holdings,
276-288;
Scanian wergeld, 291;
Scanian and Lombardic custom compared, 292-296
_Scilling._
See ‘Currency’
_Scotland_, tribal custom in ancient laws of, 297-302;
the _Regiam Majestatem_, 302-307;
_Leges inter Brettos et Scotos_, 307-318;
wergeld of thane 100 cows, 314;
rules of kindred, 318, 320
_Siclus_, silver didrachma or ¼ oz. of Roman currency, see ‘Currency’
_Six-hynde class_, 371, 392, 397
_Soc and sac_, 330, 348
_Sochemen_ in Danelaga, 331-332, 522;
their services, 332 _note_
_Solidus_ (gold) of Constantine of three tremisses, 7, 9;
of Merovingian kings, 10;
of Frisian custom (2 and 2½ tremisses), 197;
of Saxon (2 tremisses), 217;
(silver) of Charlemagne ‘nova moneta,’ see ‘Currency’
_Strangers in blood_, how treated under Cymric custom, 50-54;
under Irish custom, 90;
their rights increase with growth of kindred, 51, 90;
their half wergeld, 401-403;
galanas and wergeld of, without kindred, goes to the lord, 54, 478;
ordeal instead of oaths, 166, 403
_Thane_ = twelve-hyndeman, 325;
might rise to be an eorl, 368.
See ‘King’s Thane’
_Thrymsa_, Northumbrian unit of currency = 3_d._, 362-366
_Twelve-hynde and Twy-hynde_, 406-416;
_hyndens_ of oath-helpers, 409;
full kindred twelve hyndens of oath-helpers, 409-411;
twy-hynde class, originally the kinless class, as freedmen, 412, 500;
steps to higher grade, 365-369, 502
_Werborh_ (wereplegium), 328, 358, and see ‘Hyndens’
_Wergeld_, death-fine in substitution for blood feud between kindreds,
see ‘Beowulf,’ and 150;
liability of kindred for, see ‘Kindred;’
normal of 100 head of cattle or gold mina, 3;
of 200 gold solidi, 6, 49, 163, 171, 225, 229, 231, 233, 314;
of 160 gold solidi, 1, 167, 172, 214, 232;
Wessex and Mercian and Kentish wergelds compared with Continental
wergelds, 436-439;
of various tribes, see names of tribes;
of clergy, 170, 177, 382
_Wife_, see ‘Marriage’
_Wilisc_, _Wealisc_, _Wealh_, non-Anglo-Saxon people, 364-5;
with five hides to King’s utware, six hynde, 397;
Gallo-Roman _Wala_, 398;
_Wallerwente_ of Yorkshire, 399;
with half wergelds, 401-403;
_wealh_ gafolgelda, 404;
Servus Waliscus 333;
Wilisc witetheow, 404;
theow-wealh, 405
_Wisigothic Laws_, 126-130;
Roman influence on, 527
_Yardlands_ of gafolgeldas and geburs, 393, 422 _et seq._;
single succession to, 517-521
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON