Read Ebook: A Source-Book of English Social History by Jones M E Monckton Mary Evelyn Monckton

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Ebook has 1094 lines and 71693 words, and 22 pages

ALFRED'S DOOMS

He who stealeth a freeman and selleth him, and if it be proved against him so that he cannot clear himself; let him perish by death.

If anyone smite his neighbour with a stone or with his fist, and he nevertheless can go out with a staff, let him get a leech, and work his work while that himself may not.

If anyone thrust out another's eye, let him give his own for it; tooth for tooth; hand for hand; foot for foot; burning for burning; wound for wound; stripe for stripe.

If anyone dig a water-pit, or open one that is shut up, and close it not again; let him pay for whatever cattle may fall therein; and let him have the dead .

If an ox wound another man's ox, and if it then die, let them sell the ox, and have the worth in common, and also the flesh of the dead one. But if the lord knew that the ox had used to push, and he would not confine it, let him give him another ox for it, and have all the flesh for himself.

If anyone steal another's ox, and slay or sell it, let him give two for it; and four sheep for one. If he have not what he may give, be he himself sold for the cattle.

The women who are wont to receive enchanters, and workers of phantasms, and witches, suffer thou not to live:

And let him who sacrificeth to gods, save unto God alone, perish by death.

If a man have only a single garment wherewith to cover himself, or to wear, and he give it in pledge; let it be returned before sunset.

All the flesh that wild beasts leave, eat ye not that, but give it to the dogs.

Judge thou very evenly: judge thou not one doom to the rich, another to the poor; nor one to thy friend, another to thy foe, judge thou.

To the stranger and comer from afar behave thou not unkindly, nor oppress thou him with any wrongs.

I then, Alfred, king, gathered these together and commanded many of them to be written which our forefathers held, those which to me seemed good; many of those which seemed to me not good I rejected them, by the counsel of my Witan, and in other wise commanded them to be holden; for I durst not venture to set down in writing much of my own, for it was unknown to me what of it would please those who should come after us.

FURTHER SERIES

If a man burn or hew another's wood without leave, let him pay for every great tree with five shillings, and afterwards for each, let there be as many of them as may be, with five pence, and thirty shillings as wite.

It is also directed to chapmen, that they bring the men whom they take up with them before the king's reeve at the folk-moot, and let it be stated how many of them there are ... and when they have need of more men up with them on their journey, let them always declare it, as often as their need may be, to the king's reeve, in presence of the gemot.

Of heedlessness with a spear.

EDWARD AND GUTHRUM

If anyone engage in Sunday marketing, let him forfeit the chattel, and 12 ores among the Danes, or thirty shillings among the English. If a freeman work on a festival day let him forfeit his freedom or pay wite.

If anyone wrong an ecclesiastic or a foreigner through any means, as to money or as to life, then shall the king or the eorl there in the land, and the bishop of the people be unto him in the place of a kinsman and of a protector, unless he have another.

LAWS OF ATHELSTANE, A.D. 925

Of Landless Men

And we have ordained: if any landless man should become a follower in another shire, and again seek his kinsfolk; that he may harbour him on this condition; that he present him to folkright if he there do any wrong, or make bot for him.

He who attaches cattle, let V of his neighbours be named to him; and of the V let him get one who will swear with him that he takes it to himself by folkright: and he who will keep it to himself, to him let there be named X men, and let him get two of them, and give the oath that it was born on his property....

And let no man exchange any property without the witness of the reeve, or of the mass priest, or of the landlord ... or of any other unlying man....

But if it be found that any of these have given wrongful witness, that his witness never stand again for aught, and that he also give XXX shillings as wite.

And we have ordained that no man buy any property out of port over XX pence; but let him buy there within on the witness of the port reeve, or of another unlying man: or further on the witness of the reeves at the folkmoot.

Secondly that every marketing be within port.

Thirdly: that there be one money over all the king's dominions and that no man mint except within port.

And if the moneyer be guilty, let the hand be struck off with which he wrought the offence, and be set up on the money smithy....

Another at Chichester.

Fourthly: that no shieldwright cover a shield with sheep's skin; and if he do so, let him pay XXX shillings.

Fifthly: that every man have to the plough two well-horsed men.

Seventhly: that no man part with a horse over sea, unless he wish to give it.

... And that no marketing be on Sundays; but if anyone do so, let him forfeit the goods, and pay XXX shillings as wite.

But if any one of my reeves will not do this, and care less about it than we have commanded: then let him pay my oferhyrnes, and I will find another who will. And let the bishop exact the oferhyrnes of the reeve in whose following it may be....

All this was established in the great Synod of Greatanlea: in which was the archbishop Wulfhelm, with all the noblemen and witan....

Athelstane, king, makes it known: that I have learned that our frith is worse kept than is pleasing to me, or it at Greatanlea was ordained; and my witan say that I have too long borne with it. Now I have decreed with the witan who were with me at Exeter at mid winter; that they , shall all be ready, in themselves and with wives and property and with all things to go whither I will on this ... condition, that they never come again to the country ... now that is because the oaths, and the weds, and the books are all disregarded and broken which were there given; and we know of no other things to trust in except it be this.

ETHELRED, A.D. 1008

Let Sunday's festival be rightly kept, as is thereto becoming: and let marketings and folkmotes be carefully abstained from on that holy day.

CHURCH RULES

We have also seen often in the church, corn, and hay, and all kinds of peculiar things kept;

Mass priest ought always to have at their houses a school of disciples, and if any good man desire to commit his little ones to them for instruction, they ought very gladly to receive them, and kindly teach them.... They ought not, however, for that instruction to desire anything from their relations, except what they shall be willing to do for them of their own accord....

Also we command those mass priests, who are subjected to us, that they very earnestly themselves about the people's learning: that those who are learned in books frequently and zealously teach their parishioners from these books, who may not be so far learned in books.

BOUNDARY DISPUTE SETTLED, A.D. 896

"In that year Ethelred, alderman, summoned all the witan of the Mercians together at Gloster, bishops and aldermen and all his chief men, and did that with the knowledge and leave of King Alfred.... Then bishop Werferth made known to the 'witan' that almost all the woodland had been reft from him that belonged to Woodchester which king Ethelbald gave to Worcester in perpetual alms, as mastland and woodland, to bishop Wilferth ... and then Aethelwald forthwith declared that he would not oppose the right.... And so very mildly gave it up to the bishop, and ordered his 'geneat' named Eclaf, to ride with the townsmen's priest, named Wulfhere; and he then led him along all the boundaries as he read them to him from the old books how king Ethelbald had before increased and given it. Then, however, Aethelwald desired of the bishop and the convent that they would kindly allow him to enjoy it while he lived, and Allmund his son; and they would hold it in fee of him and the convent; and, he never, nor either of them would bereave him of the pannage right, which he had allowed him in Longridge, for the time in which God gave it to him.... So did the witan of the Mercians declare it in the 'gemot'; and showed him the charters of the land.... And thus the townsmen's priest rode it, and Aethelwald's 'geneat' with him.... Thus did Aethelwald's man point out to him the boundaries as the old charters directed and indicated."

MANORIAL SYSTEM

FITZHERBERT'S ACCOUNT OF THE RISE OF MANORS

Customary tenants are those that hold their lands of their lord by copy of court roll, after the custom of the manor. And there be many tenants within the same manor, that have no copies and yet hold by like Custom and service at the will of the lord. And in mine opinion it began soon after the Conquest, when William Conqueror had conquered the Realm he rewarded all those that came with him, in his voyage royal, according to their degree. And to honourable men he gave lordships, manors, lands and tenements with all the inhabitants, men and women, dwelling in the same, to do with them at their pleasure. And those honourable men thought that they must needs have servants and tenants, and their lands occupied with tillage. Wherefore they pardoned the inhabitants of their lives, and caused them to do all manner of service, that was to be done, was it never so vile, and caused them to occupy their lands and tenements in tillage and took of them such rents, customs and services as it pleased them to have. And also took all their goods and cattle at all times at their pleasure, and called them their bondmen, and since that time many noblemen, both spiritual and temporal, of their godly disposition, have made to divers of the said bondmen manumissions and granted them freedom and liberty.... Howbeit, in some places, the bondmen continue as yet the which me seemeth is the greatest inconvenience that now is suffered by the law, that is to have any christian bounden to another and to have the rule of his body, lands or goods, that his wife, children and servants have laboured for all their lifetime to be so taken, like as an it were extortion or bribery.

And many times by colour thereof there be many freemen taken as bondmen, and their lands and goods taken from them, so that they shall not be able to sue for remedy to prove themselves free of blood. And that is most commonly when the freemen have the same name as the bondmen, or that his ancestors, of whom he is come, was manumized before his birth. In such case there cannot be too great a punishment.

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