THE DOOMS OF INE (BETWEEN 688 AND 705).
Source.—Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England.
I, Ine, by God’s grace, King of the West Saxons, with the counsel and with the teaching of Cenred my father, and of Hedde my bishop [of Winchester], and of Ercenwold my bishop [of London], and of all my ealdormen, and the oldest witan of my people, and also of a great assembly of the servants of God, have been considering concerning the health of our soul, and concerning the stability of our realm; so that right law and right kingly dooms might be settled and established throughout our folk. And let no ealdorman nor any of our subjects after this seek to turn aside any of these our dooms.
3. If a slave work on Sunday by his lord’s command, let him be free; and let the lord pay 30 shillings as fine. But if the slave work without his knowledge, let him suffer in his hide or by a fine to save his skin. But if a freeman work on that day without his lord’s command, let him forfeit his freedom or 60 shillings; and let a priest be doubly liable.
5. If any one be guilty of death, and he flee to a church, let him have his life, and make amends as the law may direct him. If any one put his skin in peril, and flee to a church, let the scourging be forgiven him.
6. ... If any one fight in an ealdorman’s house, or in any other distinguished counsellor’s, let him make amends with 60 shillings, and pay a second 60 shillings as fine....
8. If any one demand justice before a sheriff or other judge and cannot obtain it, and a man will not give him security, let him make amends with 30 shillings, and within seven days do him justice.
11. If any one sell his own countryman, slave or free, though he be guilty, over sea, let him pay for him according to his value.
12. If a thief be seized, let him perish by death, or let his life be redeemed according to his value.
14. He who is accused of brigandage, let him clear himself with 120 hides, or make amends accordingly.
19. A king’s retainer, if his value is 1,200 shillings, may swear for 60 hides if he be a communicant.
20. If a far-coming man, or a stranger, journey through a wood out of the highway, and neither shout nor blow his horn, he is to be taken for a thief, either to be slain or held to ransom.
21. If a man demand the value of the slain, he must declare that he slew him for a thief; not the associates of the slain, nor his lord. But if he conceal it, and after a time it become known, then he gives opportunity for the oath for the dead man, that his kindred may exculpate him.
23. If a foreigner be slain, the king has two parts of the value, a third part his son or kinsmen. But if he be kinless, half the king, half the gesith. If, however, it be an abbot or an abbess, let them divide in the same wise with the king. A Welsh tenant, 120 shillings; his son, 100 shillings; a slave, 60 shillings; some with 50 shillings; a Welshman’s hide with 12 shillings.
24. If a convicted slave, an Englishman, steal himself away, let him be hanged, and nothing paid to his lord. If any one slay him, let nothing be paid to his kindred, if they have not redeemed him within twelve months.
A Welshman, if he have five hides, he shall be as a 600-shilling man.
25. If a chapman chaffer up among the folk, let him do it before witnesses. If stolen goods be seized with a chapman, and he have not bought them before good witnesses, let him prove, according to the fine, that he was neither witting nor the thief; or let him pay 36 shillings as fine.
32. If a Welshman have a hide of land, his value shall be 120 shillings; but if he have half a hide, 80 shillings; if he have none, 60 shillings.
36. Let him who takes a thief, or to whom one taken is given, and he then lets him go, or conceals the theft, pay for the thief according to his value. If he be an ealdorman, let him forfeit his shire, unless the king is willing to be merciful to him.
39. If any one go from his lord without leave, or steal himself away into another shire, and he be discovered, let him go where he was before, and pay his lord 60 shillings.
40. A ceorl’s homestead ought to be fenced in, winter and summer. If he be unfenced, and his neighbour’s beast rush in by the opening which he has left, he shall receive nothing on account of that beast [i.e., for the damage it did], but must drive it out and bear the loss.
42. If ceorls have a common meadow or other divided land to fence, and some have fenced their portion, others not, and [stray cattle] eat their common acres or pasture, then those who are responsible for the opening shall pay the others who have fenced their portion for the injury that is done, and take such compensation as is due from [the owners of] the cattle.
43. When any one burns a tree in a wood, and it be found out who did it, let him pay the full fine; let him give 60 shillings, since fire is a thief. If any one fell in a wood a good many trees, and it be afterwards discovered, let him pay for 3 trees, for each with 30 shillings. He need not pay for more of them, were there as many of them as might be; for the axe is a tell-tale, not a thief.
44. But if any one cut down a tree under which 30 swine may stand, and it be discovered, let him pay 60 shillings.
45. Amends shall be made for the king’s ‘burg-bryce’ [house-breaking], and a bishop’s, where his jurisdiction is, with 120 shillings; for an ealdorman’s, with 80 shillings; for a king’s thegn’s, with 60 shillings; for a land-holding gesith’s, with 35 shillings; and according to this make the legal denial.
51. If a retainer, owning land, neglect the national army, let him pay 120 shillings and forfeit his land; one not owning land 60 shillings; a ceorlish man 30 shillings as army-fine.
64. He [the gesith] who has 20 hides shall show 12 hides of cultivated land, when he wishes to go away.
67. If a man agree for a yard of land or more, at a fixed rent, and plough it; if the lord desire to raise the land to him to labour and to rent, he need not take it upon him, if the lord do not give him a dwelling; and let him not forfeit his fields.
70. With the payment for a two-hundred-shilling man shall be given, as a fine for slaying him, 30 shillings; with the payment for a six-hundred-shilling man, 80 shillings; with the payment for a twelve-hundred-shilling man, 120 shillings. From 10 hides, as sustenance, [the lord is entitled to] 10 vessels of honey, 300 loaves, 12 ambers of Welsh ale, 30 of clear, 2 full-grown oxen or 10 wethers, 10 geese, 20 hens, 10 cheeses, an amber full of butter, 5 salmon, 20 pounds weight of fodder and 100 eels.
74. If a Welsh slave slay an Englishman, then shall he who owns him deliver him up to the lord and the kindred, or give 60 shillings for his life. But if he will not give that sum for him, then must the lord free him; afterwards let his kindred pay the value, if he have a free kindred; if he have not, let his foes take heed to him. The free need not pay kindred-amends with the slave, unless he be desirous to buy off from himself the vengeance; nor the slave with the free.