V. THE LAWS OF KING WIHTRÆD, A.D. 690-696.
One more chance remains for further information regarding Kentish wergelds, viz. in the ‘Laws of King Wihtræd,’ who became King of the Kentish men about A.D. 690 and, according to Bede, died A.D. 725. A century had passed since the Laws of Ethelbert were enacted, in the time of St. Augustine. Brihtwald was now Archbishop of Canterbury, and at an assembly of Church and people ‘the great men decreed, with the suffrage of all, these dooms, and added them to the lawful customs of the Kentish men.’ These laws are mainly ecclesiastical both in their origin and subject.
Mund-byrd of King and Church both 50 scillings, and so no change in the Kentish currency.
In the first two clauses the Church was declared to be ‘free from gafols,’ and the mund-byrd of the Church was declared to be the same as the King’s, viz. fifty scillings—as in Ethelbert’s Laws. There is therefore no marked change in the Kentish currency, though by this time it must have been almost entirely silver so far as any Kentish coinage was concerned.
Clause 5 introduces us for the first time in the Kentish laws to the distinction between the gesithcund and ceorlisc classes.
Gif þæs geweorðe gesiðcundne mannan ofer þis gemot ꝥ he unriht hæmed genime ofer cingæs bebod ⁊ biscopes ⁊ boca dom se ꝥ gebete his dryhtne .c. scill. an eald reht. Gif hit ceorlisc man sie gebete .l. scill.…
When it happens to a gesithcundman after this gemot that he enters into unlawful marriage against the command of the King and the bishop and the book’s doom, let him make bot for it to his lord with 100 scillings according to ancient law. If he be a ceorlisc man, let him make bot with 50 scillings.…
It would not do to conclude from this single allusion to gesithcund and ceorlisc men that the Kentish division of classes—eorlisc and ceorlisc—had given way before the Wessex division of classes—gesithcund and ceorlisc.
There had been no interval between this and the last set of Kentish laws long enough to have made likely any radical change in social conditions, and as the ‘ancient law’ alluded to was probably ecclesiastical and not especially Kentish, either in its origin or its terms, it would not be wise to build anything upon the use of the word ‘gesithcund’ beyond recognising the natural tendency of neighbouring peoples under the same ecclesiastical influence to approximate in phraseology especially in regard to matters of general ecclesiastical interest.
Clauses which follow regulating the penalties for work on Sundays, or neglect of baptism, or a ceorl’s making offerings to devils without his wife’s knowledge, or a man’s giving flesh meat to his family on fast days, do not interest us in this inquiry further than as revealing lingering traces of paganism and the ecclesiastical character of these laws of Wihtræd.
There are, however, a few clauses which incidentally come within the lines of our inquiry.
The position of the freedman under Kentish custom.
Clause 8 is especially interesting as showing that when freedom was given by a lord to his man and he became folkfree, still, even though he left the district, his inheritance, his wergeld, and the mund of his family remained with the freedom-giver.
Gif man his mæn an wiofode freols gefe se sie folc-fry. freolsgefa age his erfe ænde wer-geld ⁊ munde þare hina sie ofer mearce þær he wille.
If any one give freedom to his man at the altar, let him be folkfree; let the freedom-giver keep the heritage and wergeld and the mund of his family, be he over the march wherever he will.
His wergeld goes to his lord.
Here tribal custom asserts itself. The freedman, though freed at the altar, is to be folkfree, and yet, although folkfree and able to go wherever he will, he cannot inherit, because he is nobody’s heir. He had no free parents from whom to inherit. His lord inherited what his unfree man might leave behind him. The freedman’s wergeld if he were slain still went to his lord, for he had no free kindred to claim it. His family remained in the lord’s mund unless they also had been set free.
These points were doubtless all incident to the position of a newly made freedman under Kentish custom, and this enactment was probably needful only to make it clear that freedom given at the altar, whatever churchmen might think, was not to modify the customary rules incident to freedom-giving. The evidence of the clause is, however, valuable because for one moment it accidentally lifts the veil and shows that Kentish tribal custom was in these matters much the same as we have found tribal custom elsewhere, and it is particularly valuable as direct evidence that there was a class of freedmen under Kentish custom as everywhere else.
There are also the following clauses on oaths.
Clauses on oaths of different persons.
Biscopes word ⁊ cyninges sie unlægne buton æðe.
16. A bishop’s and a King’s word is unimpeachable without an oath.
Mynstres aldor hine cænne in preostes canne.
17. A ‘Minster’s ealdor’ clears himself in the same way as a priest.
Preost hine clænsie sylfæs soðe in his halgum hrægle ætforan wiofode þus cweðende ‘Ueritatem dico in Xp̄o, non mentior.’ Swylce diacon hine clænsie.
18. A priest clears himself by his own declaration in his holy garments before the altar, saying ‘I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie.’ And so also does the deacon.
Cliroc feowra sum hine clænsie his heafod-gemacene ⁊ ane his hand on wiofode oðre ætstanden að abycgan.
19. A cleric shall clear himself as one of four of his like; with one hand on the altar, the others standing by and accompanying the oath.
Gest hine clænsie sylfes aðe on wiofode swylce cyninges þeng.
20. A stranger (gest) shall clear himself by his own oath at the altar, and in the same manner as a ‘King’s thane.’
Ceorlisc man hine feowra sum his heafod-gemacene on weofode ⁊ þissa ealra að sie unlegnæ.…
21. A ceorlisc man shall clear himself with four of his like at the altar, and the oath of all these shall be unimpeachable.…
Under clerical influence the single oath of the stranger to be taken as good.
These statements regarding oaths, like other laws of Wihtræd, betray their ecclesiastical origin, and following directly after the imposition of penalties for what may be called ecclesiastical sins, very difficult of proof, seem to have been inserted with special reference to them. They are interesting, however, as reminding us again that the system of oath-helpers was not absent from Kentish custom.
Section 20 of this clause is also interesting, which places the stranger (gest)—may we not say the ‘King’s guest’?—in the same position as the ‘King’s thane’ as to the validity of his single oath. Both seem to be specially under the King’s protection: in the case of the King’s thane, on account of his official or military position; in the case of the stranger, probably because of the absence of his kindred. The King being in the place of kin to the stranger, his single oath is accepted.
These laws end with clauses referring to theft more or less closely resembling those so prominent in King Ine’s Dooms.
Clauses as to theft like those in Ine’s laws.
They state that a thief slain as a thief was to be without wergeld. If a freeman were caught in the act of thieving, the King might either kill him, or sell him over sea, or release him on payment of his wergeld. He who should seize and hold him was to be entitled to the half-wergeld, or if he were put to death to seventy scillings. A man coming from far or a foreigner, when off the public way, who should neither call aloud nor blow a horn, was to be taken to be a thief, and put to death or redeemed by a wergeld.
The last clause resembles Ine s. 20 so closely as to suggest a common origin.
(Wihtræd, 28)
Gif feorran cumen man oþþe fræmde buton wege gange ⁊ he þonne nawðer ne hryme ne he horn blawe for ðeof he bid to profianne oþþe to sleanne oþþe to alysenne.
(Ine, 20)
Gif feor cuman man oððe fremde buton wege geond wudu gonge ⁊ ne hryme ne horn blawe for ðeof he bid to profianne oððe to sleanne oððe to alysanne.
The close resemblance between these clauses confirms the suggestion that the expression ‘gesithcund’ in the Kentish laws of Wihtræd may have been borrowed from Wessex. Nowhere else than in these contemporary laws of Ine and Wihtræd does the term gesithcund appear, except in the fragments of Mercian law, which may thus belong to the same period.