49. #he#, resumes the subject #clerek and knyht#: a frequent
construction in this poem, comp. 20/66-68, 21/98-105, 24/204, 5;
similarly 24/209, 10 where the pronoun is explained by a noun. It is
common in AR ‘þe wreche peoddare more noise he makeð to ȝeien his sope,’
66/17. Borgström takes #he# as referring to #eorl and eþelyng#, l. 44,
with #clerek# and #knyht# as object of #demen#, on the ground that
clerks and knights did not exercise judicial power. The matter is not so
simple. #Clerek# may include bishops, who sat in pre-Conquest
shire-courts by the side of the Alderman, and lawyers generally. And
#demen# is a word of wide meaning, comp. ‘Ne wandige ná se mæsse-preost
no for rices mannes ege, ne for féo, ne for nanes mannes lufon, ꝥ he him
symle rihte deme, gif he wille sylf Godes domas gedégan,’ BH 43/9; ‘Ne
sceall nan godes þegn for sceattum riht deman,’ Ælf. Lives i. 430/244;
‘And he hæhte alle cnihtes[;] demen rihte domes,’ L 22115. Alfred meant
that there should be no discrimination between rich and poor;
discrimination between clerk and knight was not likely. #demen riht# is
a phrase in which riht is a noun: comp. ‘Se rihtwisa dema sceall deman
æfre riht,’ Ælf. Lives i. 430/239: sometimes, as in the quotation above,
it means simply, to administer justice.
52, 3. Comp. ‘Ech man sal eft mowen bi þan þe he nu soweð,’ OEH ii.
159/15; i. 137/31, 131/24; all referring to ‘Qui parce seminat, parce et
metet,’ 2 Cor. ix. 6: here the reference is to ‘Quae enim seminaverit
homo, haec et metet,’ Galat. vi. 8: l. 54 means that the judgment passed
on each man is of his own making: comp. 36/115.
55. #on to fone#, may mean, to take on himself; its ordinary use is, to
begin, 143/85. Skeat translates, undertake, but in the place referred to
in support, L 31415, the meaning is, proceed. T, RJ have cnouen, cnowen;
S. mowen: the former has been explained, to study, to know how to. I
think these readings are substitutes for something the scribes did not
understand, such as, keneliche to kepen, or keneliche him kepen.
56. T has, of here ⁊ of heregong, where _of_ is remarkable: the simple
dative in OE., _wið_, 48/321, 141/41, and later _from_ are the usual
constructions with _werien_, of the thing guarded against.
57. #gryþ#: ‘pax regia per manum data,’ Liebermann, Ueber die Leges
Edwardi Confessoris, 28: here it means vaguely, protection, much as frið
with which it is constantly associated; comp. ‘þonne nam man grið ⁊ frið
wið hi,’ AS. Chron. 1011; ‘a þisse londe he heold grið[;] a þisse londe
he hulde frið,’ L 9912; Orm 116/3380; 116/133.
58. Comp. ‘þe ælc cheorl eæt his sulche[;] hæfde grið al swa þe king
sulf,’ L 4260.
59, 60. Comp. ‘cornes heo seowen[;] medewen heo meowen. | al heo
tileden[;] ase heo to þohten,’ L 1941.