The Project Gutenberg Etext Our Legal Heritage, by S. A. Reilly

OUR LEGAL HERITAGE
The first thousand years: 600 - 1600
King AEthelbert - Queen Elizabeth

2nd Edition

By

S. A. Reilly, Attorney 175 E. Delaware Place Chicago, Illinois 60611-1724

1999

Preface

This was written to see what laws have been in existence for a long time and therefore have proven their success in maintaining a stable society. It's purpose is also to see the historical context in which our legal doctrines were derived. It looks at the inception of the common law system, the origin of the jury system, the meaning in context of the Magna Carta provisions, the emergence of attorneys, and the formation of probate law from church origins.

This book is a primer. One may read it without prior knowledge in history or law, although it will be more meaningful to lawyers than to non-lawyers. Since it defines terms unique to English legal history, it may serve as a good introduction on which to base further reading in English legal history. The meaning of some terms in King Aethelbert's code in Chapter 1 are unknown or inexact.

The chapters are sequential. The title of each chapter in the Table of Contents includes the time period covered. The title of each chapter denotes an important legal development of that time period.

Each chapter is divided into three sections: The Times, The Law, and Judicial Procedure. The law section is the central section. It describes the law governing the behavior and conduct of the populace. It includes law of that time by which people lived which is the same, similar, or a building block to the law of today. In earlier times this is both statutory law and the common law of the court. The Magna Carta, which is quoted in Chapter 7, is the first statute of the Statutes at Large. The law sections of Chapter 7 - 13 mainly quote or paraphrase most of these statutes or the Statutes of the Realm. Excluded are statutes which do not help us understand the development of our law, such as statutes governing Wales after its conquest and statutes on succession rights to the throne.

The first section of each chapter: The Times, sets a background and context in which to better understand the laws. The usual subject matter of history such as battles, famines, periods of corruption, and international relations are omitted as not helping to understand the process of civilization and development of the law in the nation of England.

The last section of each chapter: Judicial Procedure, describes the process of applying the law and trying cases for the relevant time period. It also contains some examples of cases.

For clarity and easy comparison, amounts of money expressed in pounds or marks have been converted to the smaller denominations of shillings and pence. There are twenty shillings in a pound. A mark in silver is two thirds of a pound.

The sources and reference books from which information was obtained are listed in the bibliography instead of being contained in tedious footnotes.

Dedication

A Vassar College faculty member once dedicated her book to her
students, but for whom it would have been written much earlier.
This book "Our Legal Heritage" is dedicated to the faculty of
Vassar College, without whom it would never have been written.

Table of Contents

Chapters:

1. Tort law as the first written law: to 600

2. Oaths and perjury: 600-900

3. Marriage law: 900-1066

4. Martial "law": 1066-1100

5. Criminal law and prosecution: 1100-1154

6. Common Law for all freemen: 1154-1215

7. Magna Carta: the first statute: 1215-1272

8. Land law: 1272-1348

9. Legislating the economy: 1348-1399

10. Equity from Chancery Court: 1400-1485

11. Use-trust of land: 1485-1509

12. Wills and testaments of lands and goods: 1509-1558.

13. Consideration and contract Law: 1558-1604

14. Epilogue: from 1604

Appendix: Sovereigns of England

Bibliography

Chapter 1

The Times: before 600

Clans, headed by Kings, lived in huts on top of hills or other high places and fortified by circular or rectangular earth ditches and banks behind which they could gather with their herds for protection. At the entrances were several openings only one of which really allowed entry. The others went between banks into dead ends and served as traps in which to kill the enemy from above. Concentric circles of ditches around these fortified camps could reach to 14 acres. The people lived in circular huts with wood posts in a circle supporting a roof. The walls were made of saplings, and a mixture of mud and straw. Sometimes there were stalls for cattle. Cooking was in a clay oven inside or over an open fire on the outside. Forests abounded with wolves, bears, wild boars, and wild cattle.

People wore animal skins over their bodies for warmth and around their feet for protection when walking. They carried small items by hooking them onto their belts.

Pathways extended through this camp of huts and for many miles beyond. They were used for trade and transport with pack horses.

Men bought or captured women for wives and carried them over the thresholds of their huts. The first month of marriage was called the honeymoon because the couple was given mead, a drink with fermented honey and herbs, for the first month of their marriage. A wife wore a gold wedding band on the ring finger of her left hand to show that she was married. Women wore other jewelry too, which indicated their social rank.

Women usually stayed at home caring for children, preparing meals, and making baskets. They also made wool felt and spun and wove wool into cloth. Flax was grown and woven into linen cloth. The weaving was done on an upright or warp- weighted loom. People draped the cloth around their bodies and fastened it with a metal brooch inlayed with gold, gems, glass, and shell, which were glued on with glue that was obtained from melting animal hooves. They also had amber beads and pendants. They could tie things with rawhide strips or rope braids they made. They cut things with flint dug up from pits. On the coast, they made bone harpoons for deep sea fish.

The King, who was tall and strong, led his men in hunting groups to kill deer and other wild animals in the forests and to fish in the streams. Some men brought their hunting dogs on leashes to follow scent trails to the animal. The men attacked the animals with spears and threw stones. They used shields to protect their bodies. They watched the phases of the moon and learned to predict when it would be full and give the most light for night hunting. This began the concept of a month.

If hunting groups from two clans tried to follow the same deer, there might be a fight between the clans or a blood feud. After the battle, the clan would bring back its dead and wounded. A priest officiated over a funeral for a dead man. His wife would often also go on the funeral pyre with him. Memorial burial mounds would be erected over the corpses or cremated ashes of their great men. Later, these ashes were first placed in urns before burial in a mound of earth or the corpses were buried with a few personal items.

The priest also officiated over sacrifices of humans, who were usually offenders found guilty of transgressions. Sacrifices were usually made in time of war or pestilence, and usually before the winter made food scarce, at Halloween time. Humans were sometimes eaten.

The clan ate deer that had been cooked on a spit over a fire, and fruits and vegetables which had been gathered by the women. They drank water from springs. In the spring, food was plentiful. There were eggs of different colors in nests and many rabbits to eat. The goddess Easter was celebrated at this time.

After this hunting and gathering era, there was farming and domestication of animals such as horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chicken, and cattle. Of these, the pig was the most important meat supply, being killed and salted for winter use. Next in importance were the cattle. Sheep were kept primarily for their wool. Flocks and herds were taken to pastures. The male cattle, with wood yokes, pulled ploughs in the fields of barley and wheat. The female goat and cow provided milk, butter, and cheese. The chickens provided eggs. The hoe, spade, and grinding stone were used. Cloth was woven for clothes. Pottery was made from clay and used for food preparation and consumption. During the period of "lent" [from the word "lencten", which means spring], it was forbidden to eat any meat or fish. This was the season in which many animals were born and grew a lot. The people also made boats.

Circles of big stones like Stonehenge were built so that the sun's position with respect to the stones would indicate the day of longest sunlight and the day of shortest sunlight. Between these days there was an optimum time to harvest the crops before fall, when plants dried up and leaves fell from the trees. The winter solstice, when the days began to get longer was cause for celebration. In the next season, there was an optimum time to plant seeds so they could spring up from the ground as new growth. So farming gave rise to the concept of a year. Certain changes of the year were celebrated, such as Easter; the twelve days of Yuletide when candles were lit and houses decorated with evergreen; Plough Monday for resumption of work after Yuletide; May Day when greenery was gathered from the woods and people danced around a May pole; Whitsun when Morris dancers leapt through their villages with bells, hobby-horses, and waving scarves; Lammas when the first bread was celebrated; and Harvest Home when the effigy of a goddess was carried with reapers singing and piping behind.

There were settlements on high ground and near rivers. Each settlement had a meadow, for the mowing of hay, and a mill, with wooden huts, covered with branches or thatch, of families clustered nearby. Grain was stored in pits in the earth. Each hut had a garden for fruit and vegetables. A goat or cow might be tied out of reach of the garden. There was a fence or hedge surrounding and protecting the garden area and dwelling. Outside the fence were an acre or two of fields of wheat and barley, and sometimes oats and rye. Wheat and rye were sown in the fall, and oats and barley in the spring. They were all harvested in the summer. These fields were usually enclosed with a hedge to keep animals from eating the crop. Flax was grown and made into linen cloth. Beyond the fields were pastures for cattle and sheep grazing. There was often an area for beehives.

Crops were produced with the open field system. In this system, there were three large fields for the heavy and fertile land. Each field was divided into long and narrow strips. Each strip represented a day's work with the plough. One field had wheat, or perhaps rye, another had barley, oats, beans, or peas, and the third was fallow. These were rotated yearly. Each free man was allotted certain strips in each field to bear crops. His strips were far from each other, which insured some very fertile and some only fair soil, and some land near his village dwelling and some far away. These strips he cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested for himself and his family. After the year, they reverted to common ownership for grazing.

The plough used was heavy and made first of wood and later of iron. It had a mould-board which caught the soil stirred by the plough blade and threw it into a ridge. Other farm implements were: coulters, which gave free passage to the plough by cutting weeds and turf, picks, spades and shovels, reaping hooks and scythes, and sledge-hammers and anvils. With iron axes, forests were cleared to provide more arable land.

The use of this open field system instead of compact enclosures worked by individuals was necessary in primitive communities which were farming only for their own subsistence. Each ox was owned by a different man as was the plough. Strips of land for agriculture were added from waste land as the community grew.

There were villages which had one or two market days in each week. Cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, calves, and rabbits were sold there.

Flint workers mined with deer antler picks and ox shoulder blade shovels for flint to grind into axes, spearheads, and arrowheads. People used bone and stone tools, such as stone hammers, and then bronze and iron tools, weapons, breast plates, and horse bits, which were formed from moulds and/or forged by bronze smiths and blacksmiths. Weapons included bows and arrows, flint and copper daggers, stone axes, and shields of wood with bronze mountings. The warriors fought with chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses had bronze fittings. The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims. When bronze came into use, there was a demand for its constituent parts: copper and tin, which were traded by rafts on waterways and the sea. Lead was mined. Wrought iroin bars were used as currency.

Corpses were buried far away from any village in wood coffins, except for Kings, who were placed in stone coffins after being wrapped in linen. Possessions were buried with them.

With the ability to grow food and the acquisition of land by conquest, for instance by invading Angles and Saxons, the population grew. There were different classes of men such as eorls, ceorls [free farmers], and slaves. They dressed differently. Freemen had long hair and beards. Slaves' hair was shorn from their heads so that they were bald. Slaves were chained and often traded. Prisoners taken in battle, e.g. Britons, became slaves. Criminals became slaves of the person wronged or of the King. Sometimes a father pressed by need sold his children or his wife into bondage. Debtors, who increased in number during famine, which occurred regularly, became slaves by giving up the freeman's sword and spear, picking up a slave's mattock [pick ax for the soils], and placing their head within a master's hands. Children with a slave parent were slaves. The slaves lived in huts around the homes of big landholders, which were made of logs and consisted on one large room or hall. An open hearth was in the middle of the earthen floor, which was strewn with rushes. There was a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. Here the landholder and his men would eat meat, bread, salt, hot spiced ale, and mead while listening to minstrels sing about the heroic deeds of their ancestors. Physical strength and endurance in adversity were admired traits. Slaves often were used as grain-grinders, ploughmen, sowers, haywards, woodwards, shepherds, goatherds, swineherds, oxherds, cowherds, dairymaids, and barnmen. A lord could kill his slave at will.

The people were worshipping pagan gods when St. Augustine came to England in 596 A.D. to Christianize them. King AEthelbert of Kent and his wife, who had been raised Christian on the continent, met him when he arrived. The King gave him land where there were ruins of an old city. Augustine used stones from the ruins to build a church which was later called Canterbury. He also built the first St. Paul's church in what was later called London. Aethelbert and his men who fought with him and ate in his household [gesiths] became Christian.

Augustine knew how to write, but King AEthelbert did not. The King announced his laws at meetings of his people and his eorls would decide the punishments. There was a fine of 120s. for disregarding a command of the King. He and Augustine decided to write down some of these laws, which now included the King's new law concerning the church.

These laws concern personal injury, murder, theft, burglary, marriage, adultery, and inheritance. The blood feud's private revenge for killing had been replaced by payment of compensation to the dead man's kindred. One paid a man's "wergeld" [worth] to his kindred for causing his wrongful death. The wergeld [wer] of an aetheling was 1500s., of an eorl, 300s., of a ceorl, 100s., of a laet [agricultural serf in Kent], 40-80s., and of a slave nothing. At this time a shilling could buy a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. If a ceorl killed an eorl, he paid three times as much as an eorl would have paid as murderer. The penalty for slander was tearing out of the tongue. If an aetheling were guilty of this offense, his tongue was worth five times that of a coerl, so he had to pay proportionately more to ransom it.

The Law

"THESE ARE THE DOOMS [DECREES] WHICH KING AETHELBERHT ESTABLISHED IN THE DAYS OF AUGUSTINE

1. [Theft of] the property of God and of the church [shall be compensated], twelve-fold; a bishop's property, eleven-fold; a priest's property, nine-fold; a deacon's property, six-fold; a cleric's property, three-fold; church-frith [breach of the peace of the church; right of sanctuary and protection given to those within its precincts], two-fold [that of ordinary breach of the peace]; m….frith [breach of the peace of a meeting place], two-fold.

2. If the King calls his leod to him, and any one there do them evil, [let him compensate with] a two-fold bot [damages for the injury], and 50 shillings to the King.

3. If the King drink at any one's home, and any one there do any lyswe [evil deed], let him make two-fold bot.

4. If a freeman steal from the King, let him repay nine-fold.

5. If a man slay another in the King's tun [enclosed premises], let him make bot with 50 shillings.

6. If any one slay a freeman, 50 shillings to the King, as drihtin-beah.

7. If the King's ambiht-smith [smith or carpenter] or laad-rine [man who walks before the King or guide or escort], slay a man, let him pay a half leod-geld.

8. [Offenses against anyone or anyplace under] the King's mund-byrd [protection], 50 shillings.

9. If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and let the King have the wite [fine] and all the chattels [necessary to pay the fine].

10. If a man lie with the King's maiden [female servant], let him pay a bot of 50 shillings.

11. If she be a grinding slave, let him pay a bot of 25 shillings. The third [class of servant] 12 shillings.

12. Let the King's fed-esl [woman who serves him food or nurse] be paid for with 20 shillings.

13. If a man slay another in an eorl's tun [premises], let [him] make bot with 12 shillings.

14. If a man lie with an eorl's birele [female cup-bearer], let him make bot with 12 shillings.

15. [Offenses against a person or place under] a ceorl's mund-byrd [protection], 6 shillings.

16. If a man lie with a ceorl's birele [female cup-bearer], let him make bot with 6 shillings; with a slave of the second [class], 50 scaetts [a denomination less than a shilling]; with one of the third, 30 scaetts.

17. If any one be the first to invade a man's tun [premises], let him make bot with 6 shillings; let him who follows, with 3 shillings; after, each, a shilling.

18. If a man furnish weapons to another where there is a quarrel, though no injury results, let him make bot with 6 shillings.

19. If a weg-reaf [highway robbery] be done [with weapons furnished by another], let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 6 shillings.

20. If the man be slain, let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 20 shillings.

21. If a [free] man slay another, let him make bot with a half leod-geld of 100 shillings.

22. If a man slay another, at the open grave let him pay 20 shillings, and pay the whole leod within 40 days.

23. If the slayer departs from the land, let his kindred pay a half leod.

24. If any one bind a freeman, let him make bot with 20 shillings.

25. If any one slay a ceorl's hlaf-aeta [bread-eater; domestic or menial servant], let him make bot with 6 shillings.

26. If [anyone] slay a laet of the highest class, let him pay 80 shillings; of the second class, let him pay 60 shillings; of the third class, let him pay 40 shillings.

27. If a freeman commit edor-breach [breaking through the fenced enclosure and forcibly entering a ceorl's dwelling], let him make bot with 6 shillings.

28. If any one take property from a dwelling, let him pay a three-fold bot.

29. If a freeman goes with hostile intent through an edor [the fence enclosing a dwelling], let him make bot with 4 shillings.

30. If [in so doing] a man slay another, let him pay with his own money, and with any sound property whatever.

31. If a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his wer- geld, and obtain another wife with his own money, and bring her to the other [man's dwelling].

32. If any one thrusts through the riht [true] ham-scyld, let him adequately compensate.

33. If there be feax-fang [taking hold of someone by the hair], let there be 50 sceatts for bot.

34. If there be an exposure of the bone, let bot be made with 3 shillings.

35. If there be an injury to the bone, let bot be made with 4 shillings.

36. If the outer hion [outer membrane covering the brain] be broken, let bot be made with 10 shillings.

37. If it be both [outer and inner membranes covering the brain], let bot be made with 20 shillings.

38. If a shoulder be lamed, let bot be made with 30 shillings.

39. If an ear be struck off, let bot be made with 12 shillings.

40. If the other ear hear not, let bot be made with 25 shillings.

41. If an ear be pierced, let bot be made with 3 shillings.

42. If an ear be mutilated, let bot be made with 6 shillings.

43. If an eye be [struck] out, let bot be made with 50 shillings.

44. If the mouth or an eye be injured, let bot be made with 12 shillings.

45. If the nose be pierced, let bot be made with 9 shillings.

46. If it be one ala, let bot be made with 3 shillings.

47. If both be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings.

48. If the nose be otherwise mutilated, for each [cut, let] bot be made with 6 shillings.

49. If it be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings.

50. Let him who breaks the jaw-bone pay for it with 20 shillings.

51. For each of the four front teeth, 6 shillings; for the tooth which stands next to them 4 shillings; for that which stands next to that, 3 shillings; and then afterwards, for each a shilling.

52. If the speech be injured, 12 shillings. If the collar-bone be broken, let bot be made with 6 shillings.

53. Let him who stabs [another] through an arm, make bot with 6 shillings. If an arm be broken, let him make bot with 6 shillings.

54. If a thumb be struck off, 20 shillings. If a thumb nail be off, let bot be made with 3 shillings. If the shooting [fore] finger be struck off, let bot be made with 8 shillings. If the middle finger be struck off, let bot be made with 4 shillings. If the gold [ring]finger be struck off, let bot be made with 6 shillings. If the little finger be struck off, let bot be made with 11 shillings.

55. For every nail, a shilling.

56. For the smallest disfigurement of the face, 3 shillings; and for the greater, 6 shillings.

57. If any one strike another with his fist on the nose, 3 shillings.

58. If there be a bruise [on the nose], a shilling; if he receive a right hand bruise [from protecting his face with his arm], let him [the striker] pay a shilling.

59. If the bruise [on the arm] be black in a part not covered by the clothes, let bot be made with 30 scaetts.

60. If it be covered by the clothes, let bot for each be made with 20 scaetts.

61. If the belly be wounded, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if it be pierced through, let bot be made with 20 shillings.

62. If any one be gegemed, let bot be made with 30 shillings.

63. If any one be cear-wund, let bot be made with 3 shillings.

64. If any one destroy [another's] organ of generation [penis], let him pay him with 3 leud-gelds: if he pierce it through, let him make bot with 6 shillings; if it be pierced within, let him make bot with 6 shillings.

65. If a thigh be broken, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if the man become halt [lame], then friends must arbitrate.

66. If a rib be broken, let bot be made with 3 shillings.

67. If [the skin of] a thigh be pierced through, for each stab 6 shillings; if [the wound be] above an inch [deep], a shilling; for two inches, 2; above three, 3 shillings.

68. If a sinew be wounded. let bot be made with 3 shillings.

69. If a foot be cut off, let 50 shillings be paid.

70. If a great toe be cut off, let 10 shillings be paid.

71. For each of the other toes, let one half that for the corresponding finger be paid.

72. If the nail of a great toe be cut off, 30 scaetts for bot; for each of the others, make bot with 10 scaetts.

73. If a freewoman loc-bore [with long hair] commit any leswe [evil deed], let her make a bot of 30 shillings.

74. Let maiden-bot [compensation for injury to an unmarried woman] be as that of a freeman.

75. For [breach of] the mund [protection] of a widow of the best class, of an eorl's degree, let the bot be 50 shillings; of the second, 20 shillings; of the third, 12 shillings; of the fourth, 6 shillings. [Mund was a sum paid to the family of the bride for transferring the rightful protection they possessed over her to the family of the husband. If the husband died and his kindred did not accept the terms sanctioned by law, her kindred could repurchase the rightful protection.]

76. If a man carry off a widow not under his own protection by right, let the mund be twofold.

77. If a man buy a maiden with cattle, let the bargain stand, if it be without fraud; but if there be fraud, let him bring her home again, and let his property be restored to him.

78. If she bear a live child, she shall have half the property, if the husband die first.

79. If she wish to go away with her children, she shall have half the property.

80. If the husband wish to keep them [the children], [she shall have the same portion] as one child.

81. If she bear no child, her paternal kindred shall have the fioh [her goods]and the morgen-gyfe [morning gift; a gift make to the bride by her husband on the morning following the consummation of the marriage].

82. If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay 50 shillings to the owner, and afterwards buy [the object of] his will from the owner.

83. If she be betrothed to another man in money [at a bride price], let him [who carried her off] make bot with 20 shillings.

84. If she become gaengang, 35 shillings; and 15 shillings to the King.

85. If a man lie with an esne's wife, her husband still living, let him make twofold bot.

86. If one esne slay another unoffending, let him pay for him at his full worth.

87. If an esne's eye and foot be struck out or off, let him be paid for at his full worth.

88. If any one bind another man's esne, let him make bot with 6 shillings.

89. Let [compensation for] weg-reaf [highway robbery] of a theow [slave] be 3 shillings.

90. If a theow [a type of slave] steal, let him make twofold bot [twice the value of the stolen goods]. "

Judicial Procedure

If a man did something wrong, his case would be heard by the King and his freemen. His punishment would be given to him by the community.

There were occasional meetings of "hundreds", which were probably a hundred hides of land or a hundred extended families, to settle wide-spread disputes.

Chapter 2

The Times: 600-900

A community was usually an extended family. It's members lived in villages in which a stone church was the most prominent building. They lived in one-room huts with walls and roofs made of wood, mud, and straw. Hangings covered the cracks in the walls to keep the wind out. Smoke from a fire in the middle of the room filtered out of cracks in the roof. Grain was ground at home by rotating by hand one stone disk on another stone disk. Some villages had a mill powered by the flow of water or by horses.

Farmland surrounded the villages and was farmed by the community as a whole under the direction of a lord. There was silver, copper, iron, tin, gold, and various types of stones from remote lead mines and quarries in the nation. Silver pennies replaced the smaller scaetts. Freemen paid "scot and lot" according to their means.

Everyone in the village went to church on Sunday and brought gifts such as grain to the priest. Later, contributions in the form of money became customary, and then expected. They were called "tithes" and were spent for church repair, the clergy, and poor and needy laborers. The parish of the priest was coextensive with the holding of one landlord and was his chaplain. The priest and other men who helped him, lived in the church building. Some churches had lead roofs and iron hinges, latches, and locks on their doors. The land underneath had been given to the church by former Kings and persons who wanted the church to say prayers to help their souls go from purgatory to heaven and who also selected the first priest. The priest conducted Christianized Easter ceremonies in the spring and Christmas (Christ's mass) ceremonies in winter in place of the pagan Yuletide festivities. Incense took the place of pagan burnt offerings, holy water of haunted wells and streams, and Christian incantations of sorcerer's spells.

The church baptized babies and officiated at marriage ceremonies. It also said prayers for the dying, gave them funerals, and buried them. There were burial service fees, candle dues, and plough alms. A piece of stone with the dead person's name marked his grave. It was thought that putting the name on the grave would assist identification of that person for being taken to heaven. The church heard the last wish or will of the person dying concerning who he wanted to have his property.

Every man carried a horn slung on his shoulder as he went about his work so that he could at once send out a warning to his fellow villagers or call them in chasing a thief or other offender. The forests were full of outlaws, so strangers who did not blow a horn to announce themselves were presumed to be fugitive offenders who could be shot on sight. An eorl could call upon the ceorl farmers for about forty days to fight off an invading group.

The houses of the wealthy had ornamented silk hangings on the walls. Brightly colored drapery, often purple, and fly-nets surrounded their beds, which were covered with the fur of animals. They slept in bed-clothes on pillows stuffed with straw. Tables plated with silver and gems held silver candlesticks, gold and silver goblets and cups, and lamps of gold, silver, or glass. They used silver mirrors and silver writing pens. There were covered seats, benches, and footstools with the head and feet of animals at their extremities. They ate from a table covered with a cloth. Servants brought in food on spits, from which they ate. Food was boiled, broiled, or baked. The wealthy ate wheat bread and others ate barley bread. Ale made from barley was passed around in a cup. Mead made from honey was also drunk.

Men wore long-sleeved wool and linen garments reaching almost to the knee, around which they wore a belt tied in a knot. Men often wore a gold ring on the fourth finger of the right hand. Leather shoes were fastened with leather thongs around the ankle. Their hair was parted in the middle and combed down each side in waving ringlets. The beard was parted in the middle of the chin, so that it ended in two points. The clergy did not wear beards. Well-to-do women wore brightly colored robes with waist bands, headbands, necklaces, gem bracelets, and rings. Their long hair was in ringlets and they put rouge on their cheeks. They were often doing needlework. Silk was affordable only by the wealthy.

Most families kept a pig and pork was the primary meat. There were also sheep, goats, cows, deer, rabbits, and fowl. Fowl was obtained by fowlers who trapped them. The inland waters yielded eels, salmon, and trout. In the fall, meat was salted to preserve it for winter meals. There were orchards growing figs, nuts, grapes, almonds, pears, and apples. Also produced were beans, lentils, onions, eggs, cheese, and butter. Pepper and cinnamon were imported.

Fishing from the sea developed in the 1000s A.D., and yielded herrings, sturgeon, porpoise, oysters, crabs, and other fish. Whale skins were used to make ropes.

It was usual to wash one's feet in a hot tub after traveling and drying them with a rough wool cloth. Traveling a far distance was unsafe as there were robbers on the roads. Traveling strangers were distrusted. There were superstitions about the content of dreams, the events of the moon, and the flights and voices of birds were often seen as signs or omens of future events. Herbal mixtures were drunk for sickness and maladies.

In the peaceful latter part of the 600s, Theodore, who had been a monk in Rome, was appointed Archbishop and visited all the island speaking about the right rule of life and ordaining bishops to oversee the priests. There was a bishop for each of the kingdoms. The bishops came to have the same wergeld as an eorldorman: 1200 s., which was the price of about 500 oxen. A priest had the wergeld as a landholding farmer [thegn], or 300s. The bishops spoke Latin, but the priests of the local parishes spoke English. Theodore was the first archbishop whom all the English church obeyed. He taught sacred and secular literature, the books of holy writ, ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, and sacred music. The learned ecclesiastical life flourished in monasteries. Theodore discouraged slavery by denying Christian burial to the kidnapper and forbidding the sale of children over the age of seven. Hilda, a noble's daughter, became the first nun in Northumbria and abbess of one of its monasteries. There she taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and charity. Several monks taught there later became bishops. Kings and princes often asked her advice.

There were several kingdoms. Kings were selected from the royal family by their worthiness. A King had not only a wergeld to be paid to his family if he were killed, but a "cynebot" that would be paid to his kingdom. A King's household would have a chamberlain, marshall to oversee the horses and military equipment, a steward, and a cupbearer. A queen could possess, manage, and dispose of lands in her name. Great men wore gold-embroidered clothes, gilt buckles and brooches, and drank from drinking horns mounted in silver-gilt or in gold. Their wives had beads, pins, needles, tweezers of bronze, and work-boxes of bronze, some highly ornamented.

Danish Vikings made several invasions in the 800s for which a danegeld tax on land was assessed on everyone every ten to twenty years. It was stored in a strong box under the King's bed. King Alfred the Great unified the country to defeat them. He established fortifications called "burhs", usually on hill tops or other strategic locations on the borders to control the main road and river routes into Wessex. The burhs were the first towns. They were typically walled enclosures with towers and several wooden thatched huts and a couple of churches inside. Earthen oil lamps were in use. The land area protected by each burh became known as a "shire". The country was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons and was called "Angle-land", which later became "England".

Alfred gathered together fighting men who were at his disposal, which included eorldormen's hearthband (men each of whom had chosen to swear to fight to the death for their eorldorman, and some of whom were of high rank), shire thegns (local landholding farmers, who were required to bring fighting equipment such as swords, helmets, chainmail, and horses), and ordinary freemen, i.e. ceorls (who carried food, dug fortifications, and sometimes fought). Some great lords organized men under them, whom they provisioned. These vassals took a personal oath to their lord "on condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve, and fulfill all that was agreed on when I became his man, and chose his will as mine." Alfred had a small navy of longships with 60 oars to fight the Viking longships.

Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one-half of the men were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of common land, and a more manor-oriented and stratified society with the King and important families more powerful and the peasants more curtailed. Many free coerls of the older days became bonded. The village community became a manor. But the lord does not have the power to encroach upon the rights of common that exist within the community.

In 886, a treaty between Alfred and the Vikings divided the country along the war front and made the wergeld of every free farmer, whether English or Viking, 200s. Men of higher rank were given a wergeld of 4 1/2 marks of pure gold. A mark was probably a Viking denomination and a mark of gold was equal to nine marks of silver in later times and probably in this time.

King Alfred gave land with jurisdictional powers within its boundaries such as the following: "This is the bequest which King Alfred make unequivocally to Shaftesbury, to the praise of God and St. Mary and all the saints of God, for the benefit of my soul, namely a hundred hides [a hide was probably the amount of land which could support a family for a year or as much land as could be tilled annually by a single plow] as they stand with their produce and their men, and my daughter AEthelgifu to the convent along with the inheritance, since she took the veil on account of bad health; and the jurisdiction to the convent, which I myself possessed, namely obstruction and attacks on a man's house and breach of protection. And the estates which I have granted to the foundation are 40 hides at Donhead and Compton, 20 hides at Handley and Gussage 10 hides at Tarrant, 15 hides at Iwerve and 15 hides at Fontmell.

The witnesses of this are Edward my son and Archbishop AEthelred and Bishop Ealhferth and Bishop AEthelhead and Earl Wulfhere and Earl Eadwulf and Earl Cuthred and Abbot Tunberht and Milred my thegn and AEthelwulf and Osric and Brihtulf and Cyma. If anyone alters this, he shall have the curse of God and St. Mary and all the saints of God forever to all eternity. Amen."

Sons usually succeeded their fathers on the same land as shown by this lifetime lease: "Bishop Denewulf and the community at Winchester lease to Alfred for his lifetime 40 hides of land at Alresford, in accordance with the lease which Bishop Tunbriht had granted to his parents and which had run out, on condition that he renders every year at the autumnal equinox three pounds as rent, and church dues, and the work connected with church dues; and when the need arises, his men shall be ready both for harvesting and hunting; and after his death the property shall pass undisputed to St. Peter's.

These are the signatures of the councilors and of the members of the community who gave their consent, namely …"

Alfred wrote poems on the worthiness of wisdom and knowledge in preference to material pleasures, pride, and fame, in dealing with life's sorrow and strife. His observations on human nature and his proverbs include:

1. As one sows, so will he mow.

2. Every man's doom [judgment] returns to his door.

3. He who will not learn while young, will repent of it when old.

4. Weal [prosperity] without wisdom is worthless.

5. Though a man had 70 acres sown with red gold, and the gold grew like grass, yet he is not a whit the worthier unless he gain friends for himself.

6. Gold is but a stone unless a wise man has it.

7. It's hard to row against the sea-flood; so it is against misfortune.

8. He who toils in his youth to win wealth, so that he may enjoy ease in his old age, has well bestowed his toil.

9. Many a man loses his soul through silver.

10. Wealth may pass away, but wisdom will remain, and no man may perish who has it for his comrade.

11. Don't choose a wife for her beauty nor for wealth, but study her disposition.

12. Many an apple is bright without and bitter within.

13. Don't believe the man of many words.

14. With a few words a wise man can compass much.

15. Make friends at market, and at church, with poor and with rich.

16. Though one man wielded all the world, and all the joy that dwells therein, he could not therewith keep his life.

17. Don't chide with a fool.

18. A fool's bolt is soon shot.

19. If you have a child, teach it men's manners while it is little. If you let him have his own will, he will cause you much sorrow when he comes of age.

20. He who spares the rod and lets a young child rule, shall rue it when the child grows old.

21. Either drinking or not drinking is, with wisdom, good.

22. Be not so mad as to tell your friend all your thoughts.

23. Relatives often quarrel together.

24. The barkless dog bites ill.

25. Be wise of word and wary of speech, then all shall love you.

26. We may outride, but not outwit, the old man.

27. If you and your friend fall out, then your enemy will know what your friend knew before.

28. Don't choose a deceitful man as a friend, for he will do you harm.

29. The false one will betray you when you least expect it.

30. Don't choose a scornful false friend, for he will steal your goods and deny the theft.

31. Take to yourself a steadfast man who is wise in word and deed; he will prove a true friend in need.

To restore education and religion, Alfred disseminated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, the Providence of Boethius on the goodness of God, and Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he had translated into English and was the fundamental book on the duty of a bishop, and included his duty to teach laymen. Alfred's advice to pastors was to live as they had been taught from books and to teach this manner of life to others. To be avoided was pride, the mind's deception of seeking glory in the name of doing good works, and the corruption of high office. Bede was England's first scholar, first theologian, and first historian. He wrote poetry, theological books, and textbooks on grammar, rhetoric [public speaking and debating], arithmetic, and astronomy. He began the practice of dating years from the birth of Christ.

A famous poem, the oral legend of Beowulf, a hero who led his men into adventures and performed great feats and fought monsters and dragons, was put into writing with a Christian theme. In it, loyalty to one's lord is a paramount virtue. Also available in writing was the story of King Arthur's twelve victorious battles against the pagan Saxons, authored by Nennius.

There were professional story-tellers attached to great men. Others wandered from court to court, receiving gifts for their story-telling. Men usually told oral legends of their own feats and those of their ancestors after supper.

Alfred had monasteries rebuilt with learned and moral men heading them. He built a strong wall with four gates around London, which he had conquered. He appointed one of his eorldormen to be alderman [older man] to govern London and to be the shire's earl. A later King built a palace in London, although Winchester was still the royal capital town. When the King traveled, he and his retinue would be fed by the local people at their expense.

Under the royalty were the nobles. An earl headed each shire. He led the array of his shire to do battle if the shire was attacked. He and the local bishop presided over shire meetings and meetings of the people. Reeves were appointed by the King as his representatives in the shires. The reeve took security from every person for the maintenance of the public peace. He also brought suspects to court, gave judgments according to the doom-books, delivered offenders to punishment. By service to the King, it was possible for a coerl to rise to become a thegn and to be given land by the King. The King's thegns who got their position by fighting for the King came to be known as knights. Other thegns performed functions of magistrates. A thegn was later identified as a person with five hides of land, a church, a bell-house, a judicial at the burgh-gate, and an office or station in the King's hall. Some thegns reached nobility status with a wergeld of 1200 s. when a freeman's wergeld was 200s. They also were given a higher legal status in the scale of punishment, giving credible evidence, and participation in legal proceedings. The sokemen were freemen who had inherited their own land, chose their own lord, and attended their lord's court. That is, their lord has soc jurisdiction over them. A smallholder rented land of about 30 acres from a landlord, which he paid by doing work on the lord's demesne [household] land, paying money rent, or paying a food rent such as in eggs or chickens. Smallholders made up about two-fifths of the population. A cottager had one to five acres of land and depended on others for his living. Among these were shepherds, ploughmen, swineherds, and blacksmiths. They also participated in the agricultural work, especially at harvest time.

It was possible for a thegn to acquire enough land to qualify him for the witan [King's council of wise men, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, chief landholders, and officers of the King's household; and also chose the King's successor on his death]. Women could be present at the witenagemot [meeting of the witan, which met three times annually] and shire-gemot [meeting of the shire]. They could sue and be sued in the courts. They could independently inherit, possess, and dispose of property. A wife's inheritance was her own and under no control of her husband.

Marriage required the consent of the lady and her friends. The man also had to arrange for the foster-lean, that is, money for the support of expected children. He also declared the amount of money or land he would give the lady for her consent, that is, the morgengift, and what he would bequeath her in case of his death. If she remarried within a year of his death, she had to forfeit the morgengift.

Great men and monasteries had millers, smiths, carpenters, architects, agriculturalists, fishermen, weavers, embroiderers, dyers, and illuminators.

For entertainment, minstrels sang ballads about heroes or Bible stories, harpers played, jesters joked, and tumblers threw and caught balls and knives. There was gambling, dice games, and chasing deer with hounds.

Fraternal guilds were established for mutual advantage and protection. A guild imposed fines for any injury of one member by another member. It assisted in paying any murder fine imposed on a member. It avenged the murder of a member and abided by the consequences. It buried its members and purchased masses for his soul.

Merchantile guilds in sea-ports carried out commercial speculations not possible by the capital of only one person.

There were some ale-houses.

The Law

Alfred issued a set of laws to cover the whole country.

The importance of telling the truth and keeping one's word are expressed by this law: "1. At the first we teach that it is most needful that every man warily keep his oath and his wed. If any one be constrained to either of these wrongfully, either to treason against his lord, or to any unlawful aid; then it is juster to belie than to fulfil. But if he pledge himself to that which is lawful to fulfil, and in that belie himself, let him submissively deliver up his weapon and his goods to the keeping of his friends, and be in prison forty days in a King's tun: let him there suffer whatever the bishop may prescribe to him: …".

The Ten Commandments were written down as this law:

"The Lord spake these words to Moses, and thus said: I am the Lord thy God. I led thee out of the land of the Egyptians, and of their bondage.

1. Love thou not other strange gods above me.

2. Utter thou not my name idly, for thou shalt not be guiltless towards me if thou utter my name idly.

3. Remember that thou hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves six days, and on the seventh rest. For in six days, Christ wrought the heavens and the earth, the seas, and all creatures that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: and therefore the Lord hallowed it.

4. Honour thy father and thy mother whom the Lord hath given thee, that thou mayst be the longer living on earth.

5. Slay thou not.

6. Commit thou not adultery.

7. Steal thou not.

8. Say thou not false witness.

9. Covet thou not thy neighbour's goods unjustly.

10. Make thou not to thyself golden or silver gods."

If one deceives an unbetrothed woman and sleep with her, he must pay for her and have her afterwards to wife. But if her father not approve, he should pay money according to her dowry.

"If a man seize hold of the breast of a ceorlish woman, let him make bot to her with 5 shillings. If he throw her down and do not lie with her, let him make bot with 10 shillings. If he lie with her, let him make bot with 60 shillings. If another man had before lain with her, then let the bot be half that. … If this befall a woman more nobly born, let the bot increase according to the wer."

"If any one, with libidinous intent, seize a nun either by her raiment or by her breast without her leave, let the bot be twofold, as we have before ordained concerning a laywoman."

"If a man commit a rape upon a ceorl's female slave, he must pay bot to the ceorl of 5 shillings and a wite [fine to the King] of 60 shillings. If a male theow rape a female theow, let him make bot with his testicles."

For the first dog bite, the owner pays 6 shillings, for the second, 12 shillings, for the third, 30 shillings.

An ox which gores someone to death shall be stoned.

If one steals or slays another's ox, he must give two oxen for it.

"If any one steals so that his wife and children don't know it, he shall pay 60 shillings as wite. But if he steals with the knowledge of all his household, they shall all go into slavery. A boy of ten years may be privy to a theft."

"If one who takes a thief, or holds him for the person who took him, lets the thief go, or conceals the theft, he shall pay for the thief according to his wer. If he is an eorldormen, he shall forfeit his shire, unless the King is willing to be merciful to him."

Judicial Procedure

Cases were held at monthly meetings of the community [folk-moot]. The King or his representative in the community, called the "reeve", conducted the trial by compurgation.

The one complaining, called the "plaintiff", and the one defending, called the "defendant", each told their story and put his hand on the Bible and swore "By God this oath is clean and true". A slip or a stammer would mean he lost the case. Otherwise, community members would stand up to swear on behalf of the plaintiff or the defendant as to their reputation for veracity. If these "compurgators" were too few, usually twelve in number, or recited poorly, their party lost.

If this process was inconclusive, the defendant was told to go to church and to take the sacrament only if he were innocent. If he took the sacrament, he was tried by the process of "ordeal". In the ordeal by cold water, he was bound hand and foot and then thrown into water. If he floated, he was guilty. If he sank, he was innocent. It was not necessary to drown to be deemed innocent. In the ordeal by hot water, he had to pick up a stone from inside a boiling cauldron. If his hand was healing in three days, he was innocent. If it was festering, he was guilty. A similar ordeal was that of hot iron, in which one had to carry in his hands a hot iron for a certain distance. Although the results of the ordeal were taken to indicate the will of God, the official conducting the ordeal could adjust its parameters so that a person with a guilty demeanor would be found guilty and a person with an innocent demeanor found innocent. The ordeal seems to favor the physically fit, because a person who was not fat would tend to sink and a person who was in good health would have prompt healing of burns. Presumably a person convicted of murder, i.e. killing by stealth, or robbery [taking from a person's robe, that is, his person or breaking into his home to steal] would be hung and his possessions confiscated.

The issue of rights to herd pigs to feed in certain woodland was heard in this lawsuit:

"In the year 825 which had passed since the birth of Christ, and in the course of the second Indiction, and during the reign of Beornwulf, King of Mercia, a council meeting was held in the famous place called Clofesho, and there the said King Beornwulf and his bishops and his earls and all the councilors of this nation were assembled. Then there was a very noteworthy suit about wood-pasture at Sinton, towards the west in Scirhylte. The reeves in charge of the pigherds wished to extend the pasture farther, and take in more of the wood than the ancient rights permitted. Then the bishop and the advisors of the community said that they would not admit liability for more than had been appointed in AEthelbald's day, namely mast for 300 swine, and that the bishop and the community should have two-thirds of the wood and of the mast. They Archbishop Wulfred and all the councilors determined that the bishop and the community might declare on oath that it was so appointed in AEthelbald's time and that they were not trying to obtain more, and the bishop immediately gave security to Earl Eadwulf to furnish the oath before all the councilors, and it was produced in 30 days at the bishop's see at Worcester. At that time Hama was the reeve in charge of the pigherds at Sinton, and he rode until he reached Worcester, and watched and observed the oath, as Earl Eadwulf bade him, but did not challenge it.

Here are the names and designations of those who were assembled at the council meeting …"