The principle of the laws was that of continual improvement, either by addition, annulment, or qualification, as circumstances required, and without any principle of immutability. The meetings of the witena-gemot gave the means of this improvement, and their laws for the conversion of slaves into free men, contrary to the interest of the chieftains, exhibited striking evidence of the impulse of the improving spirit. That legal redress should be refused to no one, was one of Ina's laws, which enacted penalties on the shire-men or judges who gave refusal. That revenge should not be taken personally till legal justice had been sought, was another. The natural liberty of every individual was to be restricted by definite laws so far as social good required, but only by definite and previously enacted laws. Not only the life and liberty of the free were strictly guarded by law, but every limb of the body had its protecting penalty, which was to be paid by those who injured it, that the safety of every individual might be reduced to as great a certainty as positive law and punishment could make it. To discourage fighting and personal violence was a continual object of the witena-gemot; and also to repress those habits of reputable robbery and rapine which the powerful and warlike indulged in. The domestic peace of every individual was promoted by strong laws against trespasses in his house or lands; and every one was required to make hedges to keep his cattle from injuring another. The observance of Sunday as a day of rest from all worldly labour was strictly enforced. To abate the pride and violence of a powerful and oppressive aristocracy, the Anglo-Saxon clergy taught the natural equality of man, which Alfred also enforced. But the gradation of ranks was a principle rocognised by all the laws; and offences were differently punished according to the quality of both the offender and the offended. Each class had its appropriate rights and protecting penalties, and its appointed redress; each was kept distinct, but each was rescued from the oppressions of the other; and the law and government, as far as they could operate, watched impartially over all, and for the benefit of all. The character of individuals was protected as well as their rights and property; and slanderous words were subjected to punishment. The fair sex were taken by the law under its protection, and the principle of respecting and exalting it appears in one of our earliest laws, which placed the children, on the father's death, under the care of the mother; and by another forbidding concubinage; and by others protecting them from violence and forced marriages. A tenderness even for animals appears in the provision that lambs should not be sheared before Midsummer. We will close this enumeration by adding the principles which appear in the laws of Canute: That just laws shall be universally established. We forbid that any Christian man should be consigned to death for a small cause, but rather that a peace-like punishment should be established for the public benefit; that man may not destroy the work of the Divine hands for a little cause, who was redeemed by so dear a price. That it should be always contemplated in every way how the best councils may be adopted for the benefit of the public: That every one twelve winters old should swear that he will not be a thief, nor the adviser of a thief: That nothing shall be bought above four pennies' worth, living or dead, without the true witness of four men. No one shall receive another into his house for more than three days, unless one that had previously served him as a follower. Every master shall be the pledge or bail for his own family, and answer for it, if accused. If any friendless man or stranger be accused, so that he has no bail, he must be put into the pillory till he doth go to the ordeal. A man convicted of perjury shall be disqualified for giving evidence afterwards. Every man might hunt in his own wood and fields. CHAPTER VII. Their Official and other Dignities. THE EALDORMAN was the highest officer in the kingdom. In rank he was inferior to an etheling; for when an etheling's weregeld was fifteen thousand thrymsas, an ealdorman's was but eight thousand. He was the chief of a shire, and he lost this dignity if he connived at the escape of a robber, unless the king pardoned him. He was one of the witan, who attended the witena-gemot. He presided with the bishop at the scire-gemot, which he was ordered to attend, and the folc-gemot. He ranked with a bishop, but was superior to the thegn. He had great civil powers in administering justice, and also enjoyed high military authority; he is also mentioned as leading the shire to battle against the enemy. To draw weapons before him, incurred a penalty of one hundred shillings; and to fight before him in a gemot, incurred a fine to him of one hundred and twenty shillings, besides other punishments. The ealdorman is a title which occurs perpetually in the Saxon Chronicle. The EORL is a dignity recognised in our earliest laws. It appears in those of Ethelbert, who died in 616, where offences in the tune and against the birele of an eorl are expressly punished. He is also mentioned in a charter, dated 680. The mund of his widow is highly estimated. He is also noticed in the laws of Alfred, Edward, Athelstan, and Edgar." 1 An eorl's heriot was four horses saddled and four horses not a Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 71. d Ibid. 78, 136. 8 Ibid. 22, 71. i Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 38. 1 Spelman. Concil. p. 164. saddled, four helms, four mails, eight spears and shields, four swords, and two hundred mancusa of gold, which was twice a thegn's heriot. To be an eorl was a dignity to which a thegn might arrive, and even a ceorl. In 656, Wulfer in his charter mentions the eorls: "I Wulfer, kyning, with the king and with eorls, and with herefogas, and with thegnas, the witnesses of this gift." The persons who sign this, with the king and clergy, call themselves ealdormen. The title of eorl occurs again in a grant of 675, and afterwards. In the fragment of poetry in the Saxon Chronicle to the year 975, Edward, the son of Edgar, is called the eorla ealder; the ruler of eorls." In 966, Oslac is stated to have received his ealdordome. In 975, he is called se mære eorl, the great earl; and is stated to have been banished; he is also called ealdorman." This same Oslac is mentioned in the laws of Edgar as an earl: "Then let Oslac eorl promote it, and all the army that in this ealdordome remaineth." These passages induce a belief that eorl and ealdorman were but different denominations of the same official dignity. Yet, when we find in the Chronicle such distinctions, in the same paragraph, as "Ealfrice ealdorman, and Thorode eorl," we are led to imagine that there must have been some peculiar traits by which they were discriminated. But it is obvious, from the Saxon Chronicle, that eorldome2 expressed the same thing that ealdordome has been applied to signify. In the latter part of the Anglo-Saxon period, the title caldorman seems to have been superseded by that of eorl. The iarl of the Northmen was the same title. We cannot now ascertain the precise distinction of rank and power that prevailed between the eorl and the ealdorman. The term HERETOCH implies the leader of an army; and HOLD is mentioned as a dignity in Ethelstan's laws, whose were was higher than that of a thegn. Many persons with this title are mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, in the years 905, 911. The GEREFAS were officers appointed by the executive power, and in rank inferior to the eorl or ealdorman. They were of various kinds. The heh-gerefa is mentioned, whose were was four thousand thrymsas. Also the wic-gerefa, before whom purchases of the Kentishmen in London were to be made, unless they had good witnesses. And the porte-gerefa, or the gerefa of the gate, who was to witness all purchases without the gate, unless other unimpeachable persons were present. • Wilk. 144. " Ibid. 123. * Wilk. Leg. Sax. 82. a Ibid. 164-173. d Wilk. Leg. 71. The gerefas were in every byrig." They were judicial officers,h and were ordered to judge according to right judgment, and the dom-boc, or book of judgment. They delivered over offenders to punishment. They were present at the folc-gemot, where they were to do justice. They were ordered to convene a gemot every four weeks, to end lawsuits. They took bail or security in their respective shires for every one to keep the peace; and if they omitted to take the bail, and neglected their duty, they lost their office, and the king's friendship, and forfeited to him one hundred and twenty shillings. In cases of robbery, application was to be made to the gerefa in whose district it was; and he was to provide as many men as were sufficient to apprehend the thief, and avenge the injury." If any one became "untrue" to every one, the king's gerefa was to go and bring him under bail, that he might be brought to justice to answer his accuser. If the offender could find no bail, he was to be killed." He was to supply such prisoners with food who had no relations that could support them. He was to defend the abbots in their necessities.P They were made responsible for their official conduct. If they neglected their duty, it was ordered, in the laws of Ethelstan, that they should be fined for their delinquency, and be displaced, and the bishop was to announce it to the gerefa in his province. If they broke the law, they had to pay five pounds the first time, the price of their were the second, and for the third offence they lost all their property. If they took a bribe to pervert right, they were punished as severely. The thegns of the Anglo-Saxons were in rank below the corls and ealdormen. They formed a species of nobility peculiar to those ancient times; and though, at this distant period, they cannot be delineated accurately, yet, from the circumstances which we can collect, we shall find them a very curious and interesting order of men. Ibid. 62. The exposition of the duties of an eorl, and the higher dignities, which exists in Anglo-Saxon, adds something to our notions of their character: "Eorls and heretogas, and the secular judges, and also the gerefas, must necessarily love justice before God and the world, and must never by unjust judgment lay aside their own wisdom for either enmity or friendship. They must not thus turn wrong into right, nor decree injustice to the oppression of the poor. They should, above all other things, honour and defend the church; they should protect widows and orphans, and help the needy, and watch to guard the enslaved. Thieves and robbers they should hate, and spoilers and plunderers destroy, unless they will amend and abstain for ever from their violences. For this is true which I say, believe it who will, Wo to those that inflict injury, unless they amend: most surely they shall suffer in the dim and deep caverns of the infernal punishments, apart from all help,'" &c. Lib. Const. Wilk. Leg. 149. It has been already mentioned, that it was a rank attainable by all, even by the servile, and that the requisites which constituted the dignity are stated in the laws to have been the possession of five hides of his own land, a church, a kitchen, a bellhouse, a judicial seat at the burgh gate, and a distinct office or station in the king's hall. It is not clear whether this means an office in the king's household, or a seat in the witena-gemot. The latter has some probabilities in its favour. But it was essential to a thegn, that he should be a landed proprietor; for though a ceorl had a helm, mail, and a gold-handled sword, yet if he had no land, the laws declare that he must still remain a ceorl.s The thegns were of two descriptions. The inferior sort was called thegn, and the superior were distinguished as king's thegns. The laws recognise these two descriptions. A king's thegn accused of homicide was to acquit himself of guilt by twelve king's thegns; a thegn of lessa maga, with eleven of his equals. The here-geat, or heriot of the king's thegn that was nearest to him, was two horses saddled, and two not saddled, two swords, four spears, shields, helms, and mails, and fifty mancusa of gold. But the here-geat of a middling thegn was but one horse, and his trappings and arms." By comparing these heriots, we may see how greatly superior the rank of a king's thegn was esteemed. The inferior thegns appear to have been numerous. In every borough, says a law, thirty-three thanes were chosen to witness. In small burghs, and to every hundred, twelve were to be sclected. Thegns had halls. Thegns are twice mentioned in the laws as thegns born so.w Perhaps the title was attached to their landed property, and descended with it. In the Domesday Survey, many lands are mentioned in several counties, which are called "Terra tainorum ;" the land of the thegns; and they are mentioned also with their milites. Thegn-lands seem to have had some analogy with the baronies of the Norman times. If a thegn had a church in his boclande, with a place of burial, he was to give to the church one-third of his own tenths; if he had not a burial-place, he was to give what he chose out of the nine parts. What Alfred calls the king's thegn is in Bede the king's minis • Wilk. Leg. 70. t Ibid. 47. So the superior thane is mentioned in the laws as having a thane under him, serving him as his lord in the king's hall. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 144. The officers of the king's household were also called thegns, as his disc-thegn, hregel-thegn, hors-thegn, or the thanes of his dishes, his wardrobe, and his horses. Ibid. 80. Their halls are often mentioned in Domesday-book. Ibid. 125, 27. Wilk. Leg. 130, 144. |