[550] Preface to Pastoral Care. Cf. the description of the Lombard ravages in the translation of the Dialogues, p. 258: ‘nu syndon þa burga forhergode … ⁊ þa ceastra toworpene, cyrcan forbærnde ⁊ mynstra toworpene, ⁊ eac gehwylce tunas ge wera ge wifa fram hæðenum mannum geweste, ⁊ eac fram ælce bigonge þis land ligeð tolysed ⁊ idlað in westenne. ne eardað nænig agend frea, ac wild-deor abysgiað þa stowe, þa ær hæfde ⁊ eardode manna mænigo.’
[551] So Freeman, in Dict. Nat. Biog. i. 156; cf. S. C. H. i. 99, 100; ‘occasione barbarorum etiam indigenae in rapinas anhelauerant,’ W. M. i. 129.
[552] Rev. C. S. Taylor, Origin of the Mercian Shires, p. 3.
[553] Below, § 90. Cf. M. H. Turk, The Legal Code of Alfred the Great, pp. 50, 51 (a very useful monograph); Schmid, Gesetze, pp. xxxvii ff.
[554] ‘licet enim, ut quidam ait, leges inter arma sileant, ille inter fremitus armorum leges tulit,’ Gesta Regum, i. 129; cf. Robert of Gloucester, i. 392: ‘Vor þey me segge þat lawes beþ in worre tyme uorlore, Nas it noȝt so bi is daye, vor þei he in worre were, Lawes he made riȝtuolore and strengore þen er were.’ Cf. Chron. Rames., p. 13: ‘Alfredus rex Anglicarum legum conditor.’
[555] Turk, u. s. p. 35.
[556] ‘þæt it here name,’ Turk, p. 74; Schmid, p. 62; ‘here’ is the regular name for the Danish, as ‘fyrd’ is for the native host.
[557] Turk, p. 100; Schmid, p. 94.
[558] Turk, p. 82; Schmid, p. 66; Alfred’s idea that it was Christianity which first allowed money-compensation for offences is interesting, though unhistorical. The same idea occurs Oros. 48, 32.
[559] Turk, p. 84; Schmid, p. 72.