If the gold (i.e., ring-) finger be struck off, for that shall be xvii shillings as bōt, and for its nail iv shillings as bōt.
If the little finger be struck off, for that shall be as bōt ix shillings, and for its nail one shilling, if that be struck off.”[78]
The authors of a code so thoroughly commercial in spirit naturally regarded theft as the worst of crimes, and hanging was probably common for this offence, if the thief could not redeem himself. Thus we read in the laws of Æthelstan: “That no thief be spared over xii pence, and no person over xii years, who we learn, according to folk-right, that he is guilty, and can make no denial: that we slay him and take all that he has.”[79]
William the Conqueror abolished capital punishment. For this he has been highly eulogised by Mr. J. R. Green, who writes of “strange touches of a humanity far in advance of his age,” of “his aversion to shed blood by process of law.” But he omits to tell us that for the punishment of death William substituted punishments which, as Mr. Freeman justly says, “according to modern ideas were worse than death.” It is indeed “a strange touch of humanity” which prescribed the tearing out of a man’s eyes and the lopping off of his limbs. A terrible picture of a land haunted by sightless and maimed trunks is conjured up by the words of William’s law, “so that the trunk may remain alive as a sign of its crimes.”[80]
The penalty for breach of this law, confiscation of all the offender’s property, was so severe that we may well believe that capital punishment was actually abolished during the reign of William.
It appears that capital punishment was re-instituted by Henry I. in 1108, and there seems no reason for doubting the statement, though the evidence was not wholly accepted by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen.
“The English king, Henry, established his peace and settled law, by which, if any one was taken in theft or robbery, he should be hanged.”[81]
The institution of the gallows of Tyburn probably dates from this time. The origin of Tyburn is certainly Norman; its early name, “The Elms,” testifies to this, for among the Normans the elm was the tree of justice. Here is the record of a symbolic elm so famous that its fall awakened an echo in the distant scriptorium of Peterborough:—
“A.D. 1188. In this year, Philip, king of France, cut down an Elm in his dominions, between Gisors and Trie, where frequently conferences had been held in virtue of an ancient custom instituted by his predecessors, between them and the Dukes of Normandy.”[82]