Anglo-Saxon Literature Part 14

[89] Kemble called it "The Traveller's Song;" Thorpe, Cod. Exon., p.

318, "The Scop or Scald's Tale."

[90] A valuable testimony is borne to the substantial antiquity of this poem, by the fact that Schafarik, who is the chief ethnographer for Sclavonic literature, regards it as a valuable source on account of the Sclavonic names contained in it. I am indebted to Mr. Morfil, of Oriel College, for this information.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WEST SAXON LAWS.

"No other Germanic nation has bequeathed to us out of its earliest experience so rich a treasure of original legal doc.u.ments as the Anglo-Saxon nation has." Such is the sentence of Dr. Reinhold Schmid, who upon the basis of former labours, and particularly those of Mr.

Benjamin Thorpe, has given us the most compact and complete edition yet produced of the Anglo-Saxon laws.[91]

It might seem as if laws were too far removed from the idea of literature, to merit more than a pa.s.sing notice here. Writers on modern English literature generally leave the lawyer's work altogether out of their field. But these are among the things that alter with age. Laws become literary matter just as they become old and obsolete. Then the traces they have left in words and phrases and figures of speech, their very contrasts with the laws of the present, makes them material eminently literary. We know what effective literary use Sir Walter Scott has made of the antiquities and curiosities of law.

And to this may be added another remark. When we are engaged in reconstructing an ancient, we might almost say a lost literature, we need above all things some leading ideas concerning the conditions of social life and opinion and mental development at the period in question. Nothing supplies these things so safely as the laws of the time.

INE'S LAWS.

The oldest extant West Saxon laws are those of King Ine,[92] who reigned thirty-eight years, A.D. 688-726. As the West Saxon power gradually absorbed all other rule in this island, we here find ourselves entering the central stream of history. In the preamble to Ine's Laws the name of Erconwald, bishop of London, who died in 693, is among the persons present at the Gemot. Consequently these laws must be referred to the first years of Ine's reign, and they must be older than the date of the Kentish laws of Wihtred.

The laws of Ine are preserved to us as an appendix of the laws of Alfred. This is the case in all the ma.n.u.scripts. Not only does the elder code follow the younger, but the numbering is continuous as if welding the two codes into one. Thorpe follows the ma.n.u.scripts in this arrangement, though not in the numbering of the sections, and the student who consults his edition is apt to be confused with this chronological inversion, unless he has taken note of the cause. Ine reigned over a mixed population of Saxons and Britons, and his code is of a more comprehensive character than that of the Kentish kings. His enactments became, through subsequent re-enactments, the basis of the laws not only of Wess.e.x, but also of all England. Accordingly they seem more intelligible to the modern reader.[93]

9. If any one take revenge before he sue for justice, let him give up what he has seized, and pay for the damage done, and make amends with thirty shillings.

12. If a thief be taken, let him die, or let his life be redeemed according to his "wer." ... Thieves we call them up to seven men; from seven to thirty-five a band (_hloth_); after that it is a troop (_here_).

32. If a Wylisc-man have a hide of land, his "wer" is 120 shillings; if he have half a hide, eighty shillings; if he have none, sixty shillings.

36. He who takes a thief, or has a captured thief given over to him, and then lets him go or conceals the theft, let him pay for the thief according to his "wer." If he be an ealdorman, let him forfeit his shire, unless the king be pleased to show him mercy.

39. If any one go from his lord without leave, or steal himself away into another shire, and word is brought; let him go where he before was, and pay his lord sixty shillings.

40. A ceorl's close should be fenced winter and summer. If it be unfenced, and his neighbour's cattle get in through his own gap, he hath no claim on the cattle; let him drive it out and bear the damage.

43. In case any one burn a tree in a wood, and it come to light who did it, let him pay the full penalty, and give sixty shillings, because fire is a thief. If one fell in a wood ever so many trees, and it be found out afterwards, let him pay for three trees, each with thirty shillings.

He is not required to pay for more of them, however many they might be, because the axe is a reporter and not a thief (_forthon seo aesc bith melda, nalles theof_).[94]

44. But if a man cut down a tree that thirty swine may stand under, and it is found out, let him pay sixty shillings.

52. Let him who is accused of secret compositions clear himself of those compositions with 120 hides, or pay 120 shillings.[95]

ALFRED'S LAWS.

Here I will quote from the introductory portion a piece which ill.u.s.trates the subject generally, and which is rendered interesting by the wide diversity of comment which it has elicited from Mr. Kemble and Sir H. Maine. The former is almost outrageously angry at Alfred for attributing the system of bots or compensations to the influence of Christianity; while in the strong terms wherewith treason against the lord is branded, he can only see "these despotic tendencies of a great prince, nurtured probably by his exaggerated love for foreign literature."[96] It is positively refreshing to come out of this heat and dust into the orderly and consecutive demonstration of Sir H. Maine, who concludes a course of systematic exposition on the history of Criminal Law, and indeed concludes his entire book on Ancient Law, with an appreciative quotation of this pa.s.sage from the Laws of Alfred. It is thus introduced:--

"There is a pa.s.sage in the writings of King Alfred which brings out into remarkable clearness the struggle of the various ideas that prevailed in his day as to the origin of criminal jurisdiction. It will be seen that Alfred attributes it partly to the authority of the Church and partly to that of the Witan, while he expressly claims for treason against the lord the same immunity from ordinary rules which the Roman Law of Majestas had a.s.signed to treason against the Caesar."

Siththan thaet tha gelamp, thaet monega theoda Cristes geleafan onfengon, tha wurdon monega seonothas geond ealne middan geard gegaderode, and eac swa geond Angel cyn, siththan hie Cristes geleafan onfengon, haligra biscepa and eac otherra gethungenra witena. Hie tha gesetton for thaere mildheortnesse, the Crist laerde, aet maestra hwelcre misdaede, thaet tha woruld hlafordas moston mid hiora leafan buton synne aet tham forman gylte thaere fioh-bote onfon, the hie tha gesettan; buton aet hlaford searwe, tham hie nane mildheortnesse ne dorston gecwaethan, fortham the G.o.d aelmihtig tham nane ne gedemde the hine oferhoG.o.don, ne Crist, G.o.des sunu, tham nane ne gedemde, the hyne sealde to deathe; and he bebead thone hlaford lufian swa hine selfne.

After that it happened that many nations received the faith of Christ, and there were many synods a.s.sembled through all parts of the world, and likewise throughout the Angle race after they had received the faith of Christ, of holy bishops and also of other distinguished Witan. They then ordained, out of that compa.s.sion which Christ had taught, in the case of almost every misdeed, that the secular lords might, with their leave and without sin, for the first offence accept the money penalty which they then ordained; excepting in the case of treason against a lord, to which they dared not a.s.sign any mercy, because G.o.d Almighty adjudged none to them that despised Him, nor did Christ, the Son of G.o.d, adjudge any to them that sold Him to death; and He commanded that the lord should be loved as Himself.

Hie tha on monegum senothum monegra menniscra misdaeda bote gesetton, and on monega senoth bec hy writon hwaer anne dom hwaer otherne.

They then in many synods ordained a "bot" for many human misdeeds, and in many a synod-book they wrote, here one decision, there another.

Ic tha aelfred cyning thas togaedere gegaderode and awritan het monege thara, the ure foregengan heoldon, tha the me licodon; and manege thara the me ne licodon, ic awearp mid minra witena getheahte, and on othre wisan bebead to healdenne, fortham ic ne dorste gethristlaecan thara minra awuht feala on gewrit settan, fortham me waes uncuth, hwaet thaes tham lician wolde, the aefter us waeren. Ac tha the ic gemette, awther oththe on Ines daege, mines maeges, oththe on Offan, Myrcena cyninges, oththe on aethelbryhtes, the aerest fulluht onfeng on Angel cynne, tha the me ryhtoste thuhton, ic tha her on gegaderode and tha othre forlet.

I then, Alfred, king, gathered these together, and I ordered to write out many of those that our forefathers held which to me seemed good; and many of those that to me seemed not good I rejected, with the counsel of my Witan, and in other wise commanded to hold; forasmuch as I durst not venture to set any great quant.i.ty of my own in writing, because it was unknown to me what would please those who should be after us. But those things that I found established, either in the days of Ine my kinsman, or in Offa's, king of the Mercians, or in aethelbryht's, who first received baptism in the Angle race, those which seemed to me rightest, those I have here gathered together, and the others I have rejected.

Ic tha aelfred, West seaxna cyning, eallum minum witum thas geeowde, and hie tha cwaedon, thaet him thaet licode eallum to healdenne.

I then, Alfred, king of the West Saxons, to all my Witan showed these; and they then said, that it seemed good to them all that they should be holden.

ALFRED AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE.

This is a little code which marks a crisis in Alfred's life, and, it may be added, a crisis also in the life of the nation. When Alfred by his victory over the Danes in 878 had brought them to sue for peace, the treaty was made at Wedmore in Somersetshire. The original text of the peace between Alfred and Guthrum is among the Anglo-Saxon laws, and we present it to the reader in its entire form. The first item is about the frontier line between the two races which was drawn diagonally through the heart of England, cutting Mercia in two, and leaving half of it under the Danes. The two parts into which the country was thus divided, were designated severally as the "Engla lagu" and the "Dena lagu."

_aelfredes and Guthrumes frith._

This is thaet frith, thaet aelfred cynincg and Gythrum cyning and ealles Angel cynnes witan, and eal seo theod the on East Englum beoth, ealle gecweden habbath, and mid athum gefeostnod, for hy sylfe and for heora gingran, ge for geborene, ge for ungeborene, the G.o.des miltse recce oththe ure.

_Alfred and Guthrum's Peace._

This is the peace that king Alfred and king Guthrum and the counsellors of all Angel-kin, and all the people that are in East Anglia, have all decreed and with oaths confirmed for themselves and for their children, both for the born and for the unborn, all who value G.o.d's favour or ours.

Cap. 1. aerest ymb ure land-gemaera: up on Temese and thonne up on Ligan, and andlang Ligan oth hire ae wylm, thonne on gerihte to Bedan forda, thonne up on Usan oth Waetlinga straet.

Cap. 1. First about our land-boundaries:--Up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to her source, then straight to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street.

2. Thaet is thonne, gif man ofslagen weorthe, ealle we laetath efen dyrne Engliscne and Deniscne, to VIII healfmarc.u.m asodenes goldes, buton tham ceorle the on gafol lande sit, and heora liesingum, tha syndan eac efen dyre, aegther to CC scill.

2. Videlicet, if a person be slain, we all estimate of equal value, the Englishman and the Dane, at eight half-marks of pure gold; except the ceorl who resides on gafol-land, and their [_i.e._ the Danish] liesings, those also are equally dear, either at two hundred shillings.

3. And gif mon cyninges thegn beteo manslihtes, gif he hine ladian dyrre, do he thaet mid XII cininges thegnum.

Gif man thone man betyhth, the bith laessa maga thonne se cyninges thegn, ladige he hine mid XI his gelicena and mid anum cyninges thaegne. And swa aegehwilcere spraece, the mare sy thonne IIII mancussas. And gyf he ne dyrre, gylde hit thry gylde, swa hit man gewyrthe.

3. And if a king's thane be charged with killing a man, if he dare to clear himself, let him do it with twelve king's thanes. If the accused man be of less degree than the king's thane, let him clear himself with eleven of his equals, and with one king's thane. And so in every suit that may be for more than four mancuses. And if he dare not, let him pay threefold, according as it may be valued.

_Be getymum._

4. And thaet aelc man wite his getyman be mannum and be horsum and be oxum.