laws of Henry I. fall under grave suspicion, not merely of an antiquary’s pedantic exaggeration, but of deliberate copying from other Germanic law-texts. It is probable that a man could abjure his kindred, and that the oath used for the purpose included an express renunciation of any future rights of inheritance. We do not know whether this was at all a common practice, or whether any symbolic ceremonies like those of the Salic law were or ever had been required in England.11
Ranks: ceorl, eorl, gesíð.Further, we find distinctions of rank among freemen which, though not amounting to fundamental differences of condition, and not always rigidly fixed, had more or less definite legal incidents. From the earliest times a certain preeminence is accorded (as among almost all Germanic people)12 to men of noble birth. The ordinary freeman is a “ceorl,” churl (there is no trace before the Norman Conquest of the modern degradation of the word); the noble by birth is an “eorl.” This last word came later, under Danish influence, to denote a specific office of state, and our present “earl” goes back to it in that sense. The Latin equivalent comes got specialized in much the same way. But such was not its ancient meaning. Special relations to the king’s person or service produced another and somewhat different classification. “Gesíð” was the earliest English equivalent, in practical as well as literal meaning, of comes [p.9] as employed by Tacitus; it signified a well-born man attached to the king by the general duty of warlike service, though not necessarily holding any special office about his person. It is, however, a common poetic word, and it is not confined to men. It was current in Ine’s time but already obsolete for practical purposes in Alfred’s; latterly it appears to have implied hereditary rank and considerable landed possessions. The element of noble birth is emphasized by the fuller and commoner form “gesíðcund.”
Thegn.The official term of rank which we find in use in and after Alfred’s time is “thegn”13 (þegen, in Latin usually minister). Originally a thegn is a household officer of some great man, eminently and especially of the king. From the tenth century to the Conquest thegnship is not an office unless described by some specific addition (horsþegen, discþegen, and the like) showing what the office [p.10] was. It is a social condition above that of the churl, carrying with it both privileges and customary duties. The “king’s thegns,” those who are in fact attached to the king’s person and service, are specially distinguished. We may perhaps roughly compare the thegns of the later Anglo-Saxon monarchy to the country gentlemen of modern times who are in the commission of the peace and serve on the grand jury. But we must remember that the thegn had a definite legal rank. His wergild, for example, the fixed sum with which his death must be atoned for to his kindred, or which he might in some cases have to pay for his own misdoing, was six times as great as a common man’s; and his oath weighed as much more in the curious contest of asseverations, quite different from anything we now understand by evidence, by which early Germanic lawsuits were decided. It is stated in more than one old document that a thegn’s rights might be claimed by the owner of five hides (at the normal value of the hide, 600 acres) of land, a church and belfry, a “burgh-gate-seat” (which may imply a private jurisdiction, or may only signify a town house), and a special place in the king’s hall. The like right is ascribed to a merchant who has thrice crossed “the wide sea” (the North Sea as opposed to the Channel) at his own charges.14 This may be suspected, in the absence of confirmation, of being merely the expression of what, in the writer’s opinion, an enlightened English king ought to have done to encourage trade, still it is not improbable. We have no reason to reject the tradition about the five hides, which is borne out by some later evidence. But this gives us no warrant in any case for denying that a thegn might have less than five hides of land, or asserting that he would forfeit his rank if he lost the means of supporting it on the usual scale. However, these details are really of no importance in the general history of our later law, for they left no visible mark on the structure of Anglo-Norman aristocracy.15
Other distinctions.The last remark applies to certain other distinctions which are [p.11] mentioned in our authorities as well known, but never distinctly explained. We read of “twelf-hynd” and “twy-hynd” men, apparently so called from their wergild being twelve hundred and two hundred shillings respectively. There was also an intermediate class of “six-hynd” men. It would seem that the “twelf-hynd” men were thegns, and the “twy-hynd” man might or might not be. But these things perhaps had no more practical interest for Glanvill, certainly no more for Bracton, than they have for us.
Privileges of clergy.In like manner, the privileges of clerks in orders, whether of secular or regular life, do not call for close investigation here. Orders were regarded as conferring not only freedom where any doubt had existed, but a kind of nobility. There was a special scale of wergild for the clergy; but it was a question whether a priest who was in fact of noble birth should not be atoned for with the wergild appropriate to his birth, if it exceeded that which belonged to his ecclesiastical rank, and some held that for the purpose of wergild only the man’s rank by birth should be considered.
It is well known that the superior clergy took (and with good cause) a large part in legislation and the direction of justice, as well as in general government. Probably we owe it to them that Anglo-Saxon law has left us any written evidences at all. But the really active and important part of the clergy in the formation of English law begins only with the clear separation of ecclesiastical and civil authority after the Conquest.
We now have to speak of the unfree class.
Slavery.Slavery, personal slavery, and not merely serfdom or villeinage consisting mainly in attachment to the soil, existed, and was fully recognized, in England until the twelfth century. We have no means of knowing with any exactness the number of slaves, either in itself, or as compared with the free population. But the recorded manumissions would alone suffice to prove that the number was large. Moreover, we know, not only that slaves were bought and sold, but that a real slave-trade was carried on from English ports. This abuse was increased in the evil times that set in with the Danish invasions. Raids of heathen Northmen, while they relaxed social order and encouraged crime, brought wealthy slave-buyers, [p.12] who would not ask many questions, to the unscrupulous trader’s hand. But slaves were exported from England much earlier. Selling a man beyond the seas occurs in the Kentish laws as an alternative for capital punishment;16 and one obscure passage seems to relate to the offence of kidnapping freeborn men.17 Ine’s dooms forbade the men of Wessex to sell a countryman beyond seas, even if he were really a slave or justly condemned to slavery.18
Slave-trade.Selling Christian men beyond seas, and specially into bondage to heathen, is forbidden by an ordinance of Æthelred, repeated almost word for word in Cnut’s laws.19 Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, who probably took an active part in the legislation of Æthelred, denounced the practice in his homilies,20 and also complained that men’s thrall-right was narrowed. This is significant as pointing to a more humane doctrine, whatever the practice may have been, than that of the earlier Roman law. It seems that even the thrall had personal rights of some sort, though we are not able with our present information to specify them. Towards the end of the eleventh century the slave trade from Bristol to Ireland (where the Danes were then in power) called forth the righteous indignation of another Wulfstan, the Bishop of Worcester, who held his place through the Conquest. He went to Bristol in person, and succeeded in putting down the scandal.21 Its continued existence till that time is further attested by the prohibition of Æthelred and Cnut being yet again repeated in the laws attributed to William the Conqueror.22
Manumission.Freemen
