Moreover, the Wessex and Northumbrian wergeld of 1200 scillings of five pence—i.e. 6000 pence or sceatts at a ratio of 1:10—was equal to 600 tremisses or 200 gold solidi.

The Mercian wergeld of 1200 scillings of four pence—i.e. 4800 pence or sceatts—at the same ratio was equal to 480 tremisses or 160 gold solidi.

That the ratio of 1:10 was not an unlikely one is shown by its being the ratio under the Lex Salica between the forty scripula of silver and the gold solidus before the Merovingian reduction of the standard weight of the latter and the issue of silver tremisses.[277] It was also the ratio at which twelve Roman argentei or drachmæ of silver were apparently reckoned as equal to the Merovingian gold solidus.

The correspondence at this ratio of the Wessex twelve-hynde wergeld with the Frankish wergeld of 200 gold solidi, and of the Mercian twelve-hynde wergeld with the other Continental wergelds of 160 gold solidi, is sufficiently striking to be taken into account in any speculation as to the respective origins of the West Saxon and Mercian invading tribes. But that is not the object of this essay. It is enough to have noted a fact which may or may not turn out to be of some historical significance.

The value of the wergelds to this inquiry consists in the light they throw upon the solidarity of tribal society and the position in social rank of the various classes of Anglo-Saxon society. But we have yet to examine the laws of the Kentish kings, and it will be best to suspend any further judgment on these points until this remaining part of our task has been done.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE LAWS OF THE KENTISH KINGS.

I. DISTINCTION FROM ANGLO-SAXON LAWS, A.D. 596-696.

The laws of the Kentish kings, if they had been on all fours with the other Anglo-Saxon laws, would have taken back the general evidence for Anglo-Saxon custom another hundred years earlier than the Laws of Ine, and nearer the time of the conquest of Britain. As it is, however, they have to be treated as in part exceptional.

It is very probable that for a long period the proximity of Kent to the Continent had resulted in the approximation of its social and economic conditions to those of the opposite shore of the Channel. The south-east corner of Britain was described by Cæsar as having been colonised by Belgæ and as having been for some time under Belgic rule. The Belgic tribes were the furthest advanced of Celtic tribes and, according to Cæsar, had fostered agriculture, while his informants spoke of the interior of Britain as pastoral.

Under Roman rule the prominence of agriculture was continued. Ammianus Marcellinus describes large exports of British corn to supply Roman legions on the Rhine. He speaks of the British tributarii in a way which suggests that this part of Britain under Roman rule had become subject to economic arrangements similar to those of the Belgic provinces of Gaul.

The introduction, by invitation, of the Jutes into Kent and their settlement, in the first instance at all events, under a friendly agreement of payment of annonæ, may have given an exceptional character to the results of ultimate conquest. The permanent prominence of agriculture is perhaps shown by the fiscal assessment in ‘sulungs’ and ‘yokes’ instead of hides and virgates.

The exceptional conditions of the Kentish district were continued by its being the earliest to come into close contact with the court of the Merovingian Franks, and with ecclesiastical influences from Rome. The mission of St. Augustine resulted in the codification of Kentish custom into written laws a century earlier than the date of the earliest laws of Wessex.

The peculiar character of Kentish custom may have been further maintained by the partial isolation of Kent. The kingdom of the Kentish kings, though lessened in Ethelbert’s time by the encroachment of Wessex, had maintained its independence of both the Northumbrian and Mercian supremacy or Bretwaldorship.

Apart from any original difference in custom between Jutish and other tribes this isolation naturally produced divergence in some respects from the customs of the rest of Anglo-Saxon England and may perhaps partly explain why the Laws of the Kentish Kings came to be included in only one of the early collections of Anglo-Saxon laws.

Further, when we approach the subject of Kentish wergelds we do so with the direct warning, already alluded to, of the writer of the so-called Laws of Henry I., that we shall find them differing greatly from those of Wessex.

Moreover, in after times Kentish custom differed from that of other parts of England in the matter of succession. The custom of Gavelkind prevailed in Kent. And among the statutes after the Norman Conquest there is an undated statement setting forth peculiar customs of Kent in matters where they differed from those of the rest of the kingdom.

Some of these differences may have been of later origin, but a comparison of the laws themselves with other Anglo-Saxon laws is conclusive upon the point that important differences always existed and, what is more, were recognised as existing.

Although the Kentish laws are not included with other Anglo-Saxon laws in any manuscript but that of Rochester, yet they were known to King Alfred. He mentioned them in the proem to his laws as well as the Mercian laws as among those which he had before him in framing his own. Moreover, we have seen that at the time of the Danish invasion certain differences between the Kentish and other laws were known and noted correctly in the fragment ‘Of Grith and of Mund.’

Finally, in its system of monetary reckoning the Kentish kingdom seems to have been peculiar from the first. And as our knowledge of the Kentish wergelds is essential to an understanding of the division of classes, a good deal must depend upon a previous understanding of the currency in which the amounts of the wergelds are described. Before proceeding further it is necessary, therefore, to devote a section to a careful consideration of the subject. The experience already gained will not be thrown away if it should help us to understand the meaning of the scætts and scillings of the Kentish laws.

II. THE SCÆTTS AND SCILLINGS OF THE KENTISH LAWS.

All the payments mentioned in the Kentish laws are stated in scætts and scillings—naturally, by far the larger number of them in the latter.

What were these scætts and scillings? First, what were the scætts?[278]

We have already seen that before the time of Offa the silver coinage current in England consisted mainly of the silver tremisses of Merovingian standard, i.e. twenty to the Roman ounce, or 28·8 wheat-grains. These are known to numismatists as silver pence of the Sceatt series.

That these silver coins were those known by the name of sceatts we seem to have the direct and independent evidence of the following fragment ‘On Mercian Law,’ already quoted but sufficiently important to be repeated here.[279]

Now, as previously observed, the sum of 30,000 sceatts must evidently be taken as a round sum. The statement that the King’s simple wergeld was 120 pounds or six times the thane’s wergeld of 1,200 Mercian scillings seems to make this clear, for 7200 Mercian scillings of four sceatts (28,800 sceatts) would amount exactly to 120 pounds.[280]

That the sceatts of this fragment of Mercian law were the same silver coins as the scætts of the Kentish laws is further confirmed by numismatic evidence. The evidence of the coins themselves and of the names of the moneyers impressed on them seems to make it probable that to a large extent till the time of Egbert, who was intimate with Charlemagne, and perhaps even till the time of his grandson Ethelbald, in the words of Mr. Keary, ‘Kent still provided all the currency of the South.’[281] It would seem, therefore, that practically during the whole period of the issue of the silver pence of the Sceatt series the greater part of them were minted by Kentish moneyers. And thus numismatic evidence applies not only to the coinage of Wessex but also to that of Mercia.[282]

We can hardly be wrong, then, in thinking that this valuable fragment of Mercian law in using the word sceatt referred back to ancient custom before the sceatt had been superseded by the penny, and therefore must be good evidence that the silver coins called sceatts in Mercia were similar to those called scætts in Kent. In other words the Kentish scætt, notwithstanding the slight difference in spelling, was almost certainly the silver sceatt of 28·8 wheat-grains, i.e. twenty to the Roman ounce.

It is quite true that the word sceatt was used in the laws in two senses, sometimes for ‘money’ or ‘property,’ and sometimes for the coin.[283] But so also was the scætt of the Kentish laws.[284] And it may not always be easy to ascertain with certainty which meaning is the right one.

But the Kentish and Mercian laws were not alone in using the word for the silver coin. The phrase ‘sceatts and scillings’ was elsewhere used to denote the typical smaller and larger monetary unit, or perhaps we ought to say the silver and the gold unit.

In the tenth-century translation of the New Testament the word denarius is translated by ‘pæning;’ for long before this the penny of 32 wheat-grains had superseded the old coinage of the ‘Sceatt series.’ But in the translation of Ulphilas the word ‘skatt’ is used for the silver denarius.[285]

At the same time it is important to observe that the word scilling was the Gothic word applied to the gold solidus in legal documents of the sixth century during Gothic rule in Italy.

According to the bilingual records in the archives of the Gothic church of St. Anastasia at Ravenna payments were made in so many ‘skilligans.’[286] So that probably silver skatts and certainly gold scillings were familiar to the Goths of Italy.

Again, sceatts and scillings were evidently the two monetary units familiar to the mind of Cædmon or whoever was the author of the metrical translation of Genesis. In c. xiv. 23 Abraham is made to swear that he would take neither ‘sceat ne scilling’ from the King of Sodom.

Moreover, in the fragment on Oaths[287] in the Anglo-Saxon Laws (Thorpe, p. 76) the same phrase is used:

Surely in both cases the phrase ‘sceatt ne scilling’ refers to coins or units of account of two denominations in current use, as in the Kentish laws.

It is even possible perhaps to find an illustration of the reckoning in sceatts and scillings in the well-known passage in the ‘Scald’s Tale’ already quoted.

If these words may be properly translated literally ‘Of sceatts in scillings reckoned’[288] and are taken to mean ‘600 sceatts in scillings reckoned,’ the phrase accords very closely with the method of reckoning in the Salic laws—‘so many hundred denarii, i.e. so many solidi.’

Returning to the sceatts and scillings of the Laws of Ethelbert, the most obvious suggestion would be that the currency in Kent was similar to that on the other side of the Channel under the Merovingian princes. The two courts were so closely connected by Ethelbert’s marriage, and probably by trade intercourse, that the most likely guess, at first sight, would be that the Kentish scætts were silver tremisses and the Kentish scillings gold solidi like those of the Lex Salica.

We have seen that the Merovingian currency was mainly in gold tremisses, and as many of the 100 gold tremisses contained in the celebrated ‘Crondale find’ are believed by numismatists to have been coined in Kent, by English moneyers, the currency of gold tremisses in England is directly confirmed, though the silver currency seems very soon to have superseded it.[289]

At the date of Ethelbert’s Laws (A.D. 596) the Merovingian currency was still mainly gold—i.e. gold tremisses, three of which went to the gold solidus of the Salic Laws. And if the scilling of Ethelbert, like the solidus of the Franks, had been a solidus of forty denarii we might have concluded at once that Ethelbert’s scilling, like the Merovingian solidus, was a solidus of three gold tremisses, or forty silver sceatts.

But the facts apparently will not allow us to come to this conclusion.

Schmid has shown—I think, conclusively—by inference from certain passages in Ethelbert’s Laws, that the Kentish scilling was of twenty scætts instead of forty.[290] We therefore must deal with the Kentish scilling on its own evidence.

Now, twenty sceatts of 28·8 wheat-grains, as we have seen, made the Roman ounce of 576 wheat-grains. The Kentish scilling was therefore the equivalent of an ounce of silver. And so in the Kentish laws, so far as reckoning in silver was concerned, the same method was adopted as that of the Welsh, who reckoned in scores or unciæ of silver, and that which became the common Frankish and Norman reckoning of twenty pence to the ounce and twelve ounces to the pound.

Indeed, when we consider that under common Scandinavian custom gold and silver were weighed and reckoned in marks, ores, and ortugs, it would seem natural that the Kentish immigrants from the North should have been already familiar with a reckoning in ores or ounces of silver.

But why did they call the ounce of silver a scilling? We might as well perhaps ask why the Wessex scilling was five pence and the Mercian scilling four pence. But the word scilling had, as we have seen, been used by the Goths in Italy for the gold solidus. And on the Continent the gold solidus in the sixth and seventh centuries, and indeed till the time of Charlemagne, was so far the recognised symbol of value that the wergelds of the Northern tribes, whether they remained in the north or emigrated southwards, were invariably stated in their laws in gold solidi. The most natural inference would therefore seem to be that the Kentish scilling, like that of the Salic law, must have been a gold solidus equated, however, in account with twenty silver pence or scætts.

Now, at the ratio of 1:10 the ore or ounce of twenty silver scætts would equal a gold solidus of two gold tremisses instead of three.[291] And when it is considered that the main Merovingian currency on the other side of the Channel was of gold tremisses it seems natural that the ounce of silver should be equated with an even number of gold tremisses.

Nor would there be anything unprecedented or unusual in a gold solidus of two tremisses instead of three. For we have seen that when Charlemagne conquered the Frisians and the Saxons, he found that the solidi in which they had traditionally paid their wergelds were not always, like the Imperial and the Salic solidi, of three gold tremisses, but that each district had its own peculiar solidus. The solidus of the southern division of Frisia was of two and a half gold tremisses. The solidus of the middle district was the ordinary gold solidus of three tremisses. The traditional solidus of the district presumably nearest to the Jutes, i.e. on both the Frisian and the Saxon side of the Weser, was the solidus of two tremisses. The Saxon solidus of two tremisses, representing the one-year-old bullock, was that in which according to the Lex Saxonum the Saxon wergelds had been traditionally paid.

We have no distinct mention of a Jutish solidus, but as the Jutes probably came from a district not far from that of the North Frisians and Saxons there would be nothing abnormal or surprising in their reckoning in the same solidus as their neighbours, viz. in the gold solidus of two tremisses, and in the Kentish immigrants continuing the same practice. But this as yet is only conjecture.

So far, then, as the facts of the prevalent coinage and currency are concerned, all that can be said is that the hypothesis that the Kentish scilling was that of two gold tremisses has a good deal of probability in its favour. But there is other and more direct evidence of the truth of the hypothesis.

In the first place, as already stated, in the preface to King Alfred’s Laws he expressly mentions his knowledge of the laws, not only of Ine and of Offa, but also of Ethelbert, the inference being that in his own laws he retained, inter alia, some of the enactments of Ethelbert which were in his own view worth retaining.[292]

Now, King Alfred fixed the king’s mund-byrd at five pounds of silver, i.e. 240 Wessex scillings, while he must have known that in the Kentish law the king’s mund-byrd was fifty Kentish scillings. The difference in scillings must have struck him, but he probably knew perfectly well what the Kentish scillings were. For when we compare these two mund-byrds we find that at a ratio between gold and silver of 1:12 (which, as we have seen, was the Frankish ratio of Charlemagne’s successors) fifty Kentish scillings of two gold tremisses did equal exactly five pounds. Fifty Kentish scillings or 100 Merovingian gold tremisses, at 1:12 were equal to 1200 silver tremisses or sceatts of the same weight, i.e. five pounds of 240 sceatts; or, in other words, 100 gold tremisses (nova moneta) were equal at the same ratio to five pounds of 240 of King Alfred’s pence of 32 wheat-grains. The equation was exact.

And further, we have seen that in the time of Cnut the Kentish king’s mund-byrd was well known and declared to be five pounds according to Kentish law, although in that law it was stated to be 50 scillings.

The passage has already been quoted from the MS. G of Cnut’s Church law, s. 3, in which, after stating that ‘the grith-bryce of the chief minster in cases entitled to “bot” is according to the king’s mund, that is five pounds by English law,’ the additional information is inserted,[293]

Further in the same MS. G of Cnut’s secular law, s. 63, is the following:[294]—

It is not very clear what the ham-socn was. In the Latin versions it is translated by ‘invasio domi.’ And it seems to be the same thing as the ‘heimsókn’ of the Norse laws.[295] It seems to be a breach of the peace within the sacred precinct of the ‘heim,’ and the penalty seems to place it on the same ground as the borh-bryce and mund-byrd of the king so as to have become in Cnut’s time one of the crimes which in Kent also involved a penalty of fifty Kentish scillings.[296]

Here, then, the inference again is that fifty Kentish scillings were equal in Cnut’s time to five pounds of silver.

It is quite true that these two statements of Kentish law are not found in the other manuscripts of Cnut’s laws, so that in one sense they may be regarded as interpolations, but in the MS. G they are not insertions made afterwards. In both passages the words form an integral part of the text, which throughout is written in a clear and excellent hand.

It is difficult to suggest any reason for the insertion of these two statements of Kentish law other than the deliberate intention to point out that the amount of the Kentish king’s mund-byrd of fifty Kentish scillings was the same as the Wessex mund-byrd of five pounds of silver.

In addition, therefore, to the fact that at a ratio of 1:12 between gold and silver the two amounts were alike, these passages seem to show that the penalty of fifty Kentish scillings had become permanently recognised in Cnut’s time as equal to the English penalty of five pounds of silver.[297]

If the comparison had been made throughout in silver sceatts, the equation would not have held good so exactly, for 1000 sceatts would not have equalled exactly five pounds, i.e. 1200 of the same sceatts. The exact equation seems to have been between fifty Kentish gold scillings of two tremisses, and five pounds of silver at the current Frankish ratio of 1:12. So that the direct evidence of these passages from Cnut’s laws goes very far to verify the hypothesis derived from numismatic considerations that the scilling of the Kentish laws was a gold scilling of two tremisses, like that of the Continental Saxons and North-East Frisians.

It is, however, only fair to say that Schmid, while adhering to the view that the Kentish scilling was of twenty sceatts, has suggested that these sceatts may have been, not silver tremisses or pence, but farthings, so that the Kentish scilling of twenty farthings might be identical with the Wessex scilling of 5d.[298] Konrad von Maurer held the same view.[299] But if this could be supposed for a moment, the Kentish scætt would then be only one quarter of the sceatt of the fragment of Mercian law, and the mund-byrd of King Ethelbert would be only a quarter of that of the Wessex King, notwithstanding the assertion in MS. G of the Laws of Cnut that the Kentish mund-byrd was five pounds of silver, like those of other English laws. With all deference, therefore, to the view of these great authorities, a careful examination of the evidence seems to lead to the conclusion that it cannot be maintained. Nor does there appear to be any reason why the Kentish scilling should be expected to be the same as the Wessex scilling, as we know that the Wessex scilling of 5d. differed from the Mercian scilling of 4d.

We adhere, then, to the view that the Kentish scilling was a scilling of two gold tremisses like the Saxon solidus, and that it was equated with the ore or Roman ounce of silver, i.e. twenty sceatts.

The reader will be able to form his own judgment as to whether examination of the various clauses of the Kentish Laws and the amounts of the wergelds and other payments now to be considered will confirm this conclusion or not. I think it will be found substantially to do so.

III. THE LAWS OF ETHELBERT.

The Laws of Ethelbert begin with the heading: ‘These are the dooms which King Ethelbert established in the days of Augustine.’

This heading probably did not form a part of the original laws, but it may serve to remind us that ecclesiastical influence must be reckoned with in their consideration and that some of their clauses may have been modifications of ancient custom rather than statements of what it originally was.

The first clause is as follows:—

This clause is read by Thorpe and Schmid and Liebermann as enacting that thefts were to be paid for on this scale, so many multiples of the value of the goods stolen.[300]

Clause 2 enacts:—

Here are two distinct things. The bot is the payment to the person called to the King. While thus in attendance any injury is to be paid for twofold. The payment of fifty scillings to the King is the mund-byrd or payment for breach of his protection or peace.

Clause 3 is as follows:—

That is, the presence of the King at a subject’s house is the same thing as the subject being in the King’s protection, and the bot for any wrong done to the subject, while the King is there, is doubled.

Clause 4 enacts:—

It seems at first sight hardly likely that the Archbishop should be compensated elevenfold and the King only ninefold, but as this is repeated in the statement of the Kentish law in the fragment ‘Of Grith and of Mund’ the text may be taken as correct.

Clause 5 enacts:—

The bot here again is evidently the mund-byrd payable to the King for breach of his protection, i.e. fifty Kentish scillings.

Clause 6 enacts:—

Here again the payment is to the King, but in this case, if the word is to be taken literally, it is not perhaps for breach of his peace, but for the killing of his man. He claims it as his ‘drihtin-beag’ or lord’s-ring. It is, to use the later Saxon phrase, the King’s manbot or value to him of his man killed.

Up to this point the question of wergeld has not been mentioned at all. But in clause 7 is the following:[301]—

Liebermann would insert the word ‘man’ after ‘gif’ and so read this clause as stating the wergeld of the King’s smith and laadrinc-man when slain to be a ‘medume wergeld’ (mittleres wergeld). But the clause is complete as it stands without the insertion of ‘man,’ and, read as it is, means that the smith and the outriders of the King, if they slay a man, are to pay a ‘medume leodgeld.’ But what does this mean? The word medume was translated by Wilkins by ‘moderata.’ Thorpe read the phrase as meaning ‘a half wergeld;’[302] Schmid as a ‘fit and proper’ one; and Liebermann would take it to refer to the wergeld of a person of middle rank or position. We must leave the true meaning for the present in doubt.

Apart from the amount of the wergeld, if we would understand this passage we have surely first to consider for what reason these two royal officials should be singled out from all others and made liable to pay wergelds. The inference must be that in the performance of their duties they were peculiarly liable to injure others. The King’s smith in his smithy forging a weapon, and the outrider forcing a way for the King through a crowd, might very easily through carelessness or in the excitement of work cause the death of another. The necessity apparently had arisen to check their action by making them liable to pay a wergeld.[303] But the wergeld was not to be the usual one. It was to be a ‘medume leodgelde.’

For the present the exact meaning may be left open, but whether the true reading be a half-wergeld or not, the inference seems to be that a full wergeld was not to be paid. Probably it had come to be recognised that a person engaged in a specially dangerous trade could not be held responsible to the same extent as in the case of an ordinary homicide.[304] These considerations are important, because the ‘medume’ wergeld will again claim notice and every hint is valuable when, as in the case of these laws, we have only hints to guide us.

In Clause 8, the King’s mund-byrd is declared to be fifty scillings; and the next two clauses relate to injuries done to the King’s servants.

These bots are evidently payable to the King for injuries done to him by abuse of his servants of different grades. They were not wergelds.

We have now done with these bots to the King, and the laws turn to consider injuries done and bots due to the eorl.

And then from the bots due to the eorl the laws pass to those due to the ceorl. The following clauses show that under the Kentish laws the ceorl also had a mund-byrd.

Thus we get a scale of mund-byrds or penalties due for breach of the peace or protection of the King, the eorl, and the ceorl:—

but so far we have learned nothing about the amount of their wergelds.

Clause 17 fixes the bot for inroad into a man’s ‘tun’ at six scillings for the first person entering, three for the next, and one for the rest.

Then follows an interesting set of clauses, which I think must be read together, as all referring to the case of what might happen in a brawl in which one man lends a weapon to another.

These clauses taken together and followed carefully, I think, become intelligible.

A man lends weapons to another who is engaged in a brawl, and the question arises how far he is to be responsible for what happens in the brawl. In the case dealt with in these clauses two things are involved—the lending of the weapons and the joining thereby in the fray. In the later laws there are provisions for both points. Under King Alfred’s laws (s. 19) the man who lends his weapon to another who kills some one therewith has to pay at least one third of the wergeld unless he can clear himself from evil intention.

Under Ine’s laws (s. 34) a man who joins in a fray in which someone is killed, even if he can clear himself from the slaying, has to pay as bot (gebete) one fourth of the wergeld of the slain person whether twy-hynde or ‘dearer born.’ Under Alfred (29 to 31) the actual slayer has to pay the wergeld, and in addition each of the others in the fray has to pay as ‘hloð-bote’ 30 scillings for a twy-hynde man, 60 for a six-hynde, and 120 for a twelve-hynde man.

These later precedents may materially help us in the understanding of the Kentish clauses.

Clauses 18 and 19 make the lender of the weapon pay a bot of six scillings though no evil be done or only street robbery occur.

Clause 20 provides for the case in which the man to whom he lent the weapon was slain, and in this case the bot is raised to twenty scillings.