where this has not been done, let it be settled in every borough and in every hundred."j It is thus again repeated in the laws of Ethelred: "Every freeman shall have true borh, that the borh may hold him to every right, if he should be accused." The same laws direct that if the accused should fly, and decline the ordeal, the borh was to pay the accuser the ceap-gyld, and to the lord his were.'. And as to that part of the population which was in the servile state, their lords were to be the sureties for their conduct."m The man who was accused and had no borh, might be killed, and buried with the infamous." Nothing seems more repugnant to the decorous feelings of manly independence, that this slavish bondage and anticipated criminality. It degraded every man to the character of an intended culprit; as one whose propensities to crime were so flagrant that he could not be trusted for his good conduct, to his religion, his reason, his habits, or his honour. But it is likely that the predatory habits of the free population occasioned its adoption. CHAPTER VII. Their Legal Tribunals. THE supreme legal tribunal was the witena-gemot, which, like our present house of lords, was paramount to every other. The scire-gemots may be next mentioned. One of these has been mentioned in the chapter on the disputes concerning land: another may be described from the Saxon apograph which Hickes has printed. This was a shire-gemot at Aylston, in Canute's days. It was composed of a bishop, an ealdorman, the son of an ealdorman; of two persons who came with the king's message, or writ; the sheriff, or scir-gerefa; three other men, and all the thegns in Herefordshire. To this gemot Edwin came, and spake against his mother, concerning some lands. The bishop asked who would answer for her. Thurcil the White said, he would if he knew the complaint, but that he was ignorant about it. Three thegns of the gemot were shown where she lived, and rode to her, and asked her what dispute she had about the land for which her son was impleading her. She said she had no land which belonged to him, and was angry, earl-like, against her son. She called Leofleda, her relation, the wife of Thurcil the White, and before them thus addressed her: "Here sits Leofleda, my kinswoman; I give thee both my lands, my gold, and my clothes, and all that I have, after my life." She then said to the thegns, "Do thegnlike, and relate well what I have said to the gemot, before all the good men, and tell them to whom I have given my lands and my property; but to my own son nothing; and pray them to be witness of this."-And they did so, and rode to the gemot, and told all the good men there what she had said to them. Then stood up Thurcil the White in that gemot, and prayed all the thegns to give his wife the lands which her relation had given to her; and they did so; and Thurcil the White rode to St. Ethelbert's minister, by all the folks' leave and witness, and left it to be set down in one Christ's book." By the laws of Canute it was ordered, that there should be two shire-gemots and three burgh-gemots every year, and the bishop and the ealdorman should attend them. By the laws of Ethelstan, punishments were ordered to those who refused to attend gemots. Every man was to have peace in going to the gemot and returning from it, unless he were a thief.d Sometimes a gemot was convened from eight hundreds, and sometimes from three. On one occasion, the ealdorman of Ely held a plea with a whole hundred below the cemetery at the north gate of the monastery; at another time, a gemot of two hundreds was held at the north door of the monastery.f A shire-gemot is mentioned at which the ealdorman and the king's gerefa presided. "The cause having been opened, and the reasons of both sides heard, by the advice of the magnates there, thirty-six barons, chosen in equal number from the friends on both sides, were appointed judges." These went out to examine the affair, and the monks were asked why and from whose donation they possessed that land. They stated their title, and length of possession. They were asked if they would dare to affirm this statement on the sacrament, that the controversy might be terminated. The monks were going to do this, but the ealdorman would not suffer them to swear before a secular power. He therefore declared himself to be their protector, the witness of their devotion and credibility, alleging that the exhibition of the cautionary oath belonged to him. All who were present admired the speech of the caldorman, and determined that the oath was unnecessary; and for the false suit and unjust vexation of a Hickes, Dissert. Epist. p. 2. c Ibid. p. 60. 3 Gale, 469, 473. b Wilkins, p. 136. the relations who had claimed the lands from the monastery, they adjudged all the landed property and goods of the other to be at the king's mercy. The king's gerefa, and the other great men, then interfered; and the complainant, perceiving the peril of his situation, publicly abjured the land in question, and pledged his faith never to disturb the monastery in its possession; a reconciliation then took place. The administration of justice in this affair seems to have been very summary and arbitrary, and not very compatible with our notions of legal evidence. We have one account of a criminal prosecution. A wife having poisoned a child, the bishop cited her and her husband to the gemot; he did not appear, though three times summoned. The king in anger sent his writ, and ordered him, that," admitting no causes of delay," he should hasten to the court. He came, and before the king and the bishop affirmed his innocence. It was decreed that he should return home, and that on the summons of the bishop he should attend on a stated day at a stated place, with eleven jurators, and that his wife should bring as many of her sex, and clear their fame and the conscience of others by oath. On the appointed day, and in the meadow where the child was buried, the cause was agitated. The relics, which an abbot brought, were placed upon a hillock, before which the husband, extending his right arm, swore that he had never consented to his son's death, nor knew his murderer, nor how he had been killed. The wife denying the fact, the hillock was opened by the bishop's command, and the bones of the child appeared. The wife at last fell at the prelate's feet, confessed the crime, and implored mercy. The conclusion of the whole was, that the accused gave a handsome present of land to the ecclesiastics concerned, as a conciliatory atonement.h A bishop having made a contract for land with a drunken Dane, the seller, when sober, refused to fulful it. The cause was argued in the king's forum; the fact of the bargain was proved; and the king adjudged the land to the bishop, and the money to the Dane. The forum regis is mentioned again.j The folc-gemot occurs in the laws. "It is established for ceapmen, or merchants, that they bring the men that they lead with them before the king's gerefa in the folc-gemot, and say how many of them there be, and that they take these men up with them, that they may bring them again to the folc-gemot, if sued. And when they shall want to have more men with them in their journey, they shall announce it as often as it occurs to the king's gerefa, in the witness of the folc-gemot."k These folc-gemots were ordered not to be held on a Sunday; h Ibid. 440. 3 Gale, p. 416. j Ibid. 444. i Ibid. 442. * Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 41. and if any one disturbed them by a drawn weapon, he had to pay a wite of one hundred and twenty shillings to the ealdorman.' The following may be considered as proceedings before a folc-gemot. Begmund having unjustly seized some lands of a monastery, when the ealdorman came to Ely, the offenders were summoned to the placitum, of the citizens and of the hundred, several times, but they never appeared. The abbot did not desist, but renewed his pleading, both within and without the city, and often made his complaint to the people. At length the ealdorman, coming to Cambridge, held a great placitum of the citizens and hundreds, before twenty-four judges. There the abbot narrated before all, how Begmund had seized his lands, and though summoned had not appeared. They adjudged the land to the abbot, and decreed Begmund to pay the produce of his fishery to the abbot for six years, and to give the king the were; and, if he neglected to pay, they authorized a seizure of his goods." Much of their judicial proceedings rested on oaths, and therefore their punishment of perjury was severe. A perjured man is usually classed with witches, murderers, and the most obnoxious beings in society; he was declared unworthy of the ordeal; he was disabled from being a witness again, and if he died he was denied Christian burial." We have some specimens of the oaths they took: The oath of a plaintiff in the case was, "In the Lord: As I urge this accusation with full folc-right, and without fiction, deceit, or any fraud; so from me was that thing stolen of which I complain, and which I found again with N." Another oath of a plaintiff was, "In the Lord: I accuse not N. neither for hate nor art, nor unjust avarice, nor do I know any thing more true, but so my mind said to me, and I myself tell for truth, that he was the thief of my goods." A defendant's oath was, "In the Lord: I am innocent both in word and deed of that charge of which N. accused me." A witnesses's oath was, "In the name of the Almighty God: As I here stand in true witness, unbidden and unbought; so I oversaw it with mine eyes and overheard it with mine ears, what I have said." The oath of those who swore for others was, "In the Lord the oath is clean and upright that N. swore." I Wilk. 42. n Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 49, 53, 61. m Hist. El. 3 Gale, 478. • Ibid. 63, 64. CHAPTER VIII. Their Ordeals and legal Punishments. We have a full account of the Anglo-Saxon ordeals, of hot water and hot iron, in the laws of Ina. The iron was to be three pounds in weight for the threefold trial, and therefore probably one pound only for the more simple charge; and the accused was to have the option, whether he would prefer the water "ordal" or the iron "ordal." No man was to go within the church after the fire was lighted by which the ordeal was to be heated, except the priest and the accused. The distance of nine feet was to be then measured out, from the stake, of the length of the foot of the accused. If the trial was to be by hot water, the water was heated till it boiled furiously; and the vessel that contained it was to be iron or copper, lead or clay. If the charge was of the kind they called anfeald, or simple, the accused was to immerse his hand as far as the wrist in the water, to take out the stone; if the charge was of threefold magnitude, he was to plunge his arm up to the elbow. When the ordeal was ready, two men were to enter of each side, and to agree that the water was boiling furiously. Then an equal number of men were to enter from each side, and to stand along the church on both sides of the ordeal, all fasting. After this the priest was to sprinkle them with holy water, of which each was to taste; they were to kiss the Gospels, and to be signed with the cross. All this time the fire was not to be mended any more; but the iron, if the ordeal was to be by hot iron, was to lie on the coals till the last collect was finished; and it was then to be placed on the staples which were to sustain it. While the accused was snatching the stone out of the water, or carrying the hot iron for the space of nine feet, nothing was to be said but a prayer to the Deity to discover the truth. The hand was to be then bound up and sealed, and to be kept so for three days; after that time the seal and the bandage were removed, and the hand was to be examined, to see whether it was foul or clear." From this plain account, the ordeal was not so terrible as it may at first sight appear; because, independently of the oppor a Wilk. Leg. Inæ, p. 27. |