[288] Assize Dav. 14, 15. I have adopted the reading of the Ayr MS.; xx.ix. instead of xxix., as 180 cows—nine times twenty—were paid as manbote for homicide throughout Scotia. According to the other reading, the fine for homicide “in the king’s gryth” would have been less than elsewhere. Vide Act. Parl. Scot., vol. 1, p. 3.
[289] Assize Will. 13. This was known as Berthynsak. Cases of this description and Blodwite—petty thefts and assaults—long continued to be tried in the lesser courts.
[290] Assize Dav. 33. Wil. 11. Leg. Wil. Conq. 1, 28. For the Hundred, vide Appendix F.
[291] Thorpe’s Ancient Laws, Ed. 1. Ath. I. 10, 12, 24, v. 10. Edm. C. 5. Edg. Sup., 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10. C. S., 24, and Gloss in voc Team. By the laws of Edward and Athelstan none were to buy or sell except “in Port,” and before the Port-Reeve; but after the institution of the Hundred, purchases and sales might be made, in conformity with the legal forms, in the upland as well as in burgh. The regulations about warranty first appear in the laws of Kent, the king’s Wic-gerefa of Lunden-wic being the personage in authority, the king’s hall in the wic, the place of trial. H. and E. 16.
[292] Wootton Welsh Laws, l. 2, c. 4; l. 5, c. 5, s. 79, 80. Leg. Wil. Conq., 1, 21. Lex. Sal. Tit. 49. Assize Wil. 5. The Frank Hamallus was the “super quem res primitus agnita fuerit, vel intertiata,” the “third hand,” apparently, of the Welsh bargain. From the Conqueror’s laws it would appear that the Norman Hemold-borh was not identical with the Getyma, but he was a character of a similar description. As late as the seventeenth century, the Borch Hamel was well known in the Scottish Highlands, and no cattle was bought without “sufficient caution of burgh and hamer.” Innes’ Sketches, etc., p. 382, note 1.
[293] Assize Wil., 3, 4, 5, 16. Lex. Sal. Tit. 49. Leg. Hen. I. xli. The Welsh gave, for finding witnesses, three days within the Commot, nine if in the neighbouring Commot, and a fortnight beyond that distance or across an estuary.—Wootton, l. 2, c. 10.
[294] Assize Wil. 18.
[295] Assize Dav., 1, 13, 16. Wil. 20. Slat, Alex. II. 4. The three Thanedoms are evidently the same as the three Baronies, so continually met with in later laws. Both are evidently counterparts of the “three tuns” amongst the Anglo-Danish confederacy of Mercia, and the “three Dorfern” amongst the Saxons, with whom it was lawful, “if a theft be committed hand-habend, or a robbery in which the offender is taken, to choose a Go-graf” from at least three villages (Dorfern), “and they shall form a court and judge the case, provided the judge who has the office in fee (belehenten Richter) cannot be had.” Leg. Eth. III. 15, and Sach. Spieg., l. 1, c. 55, quoted in note d. The fine of 34 cows is called in William’s laws (14), the thief’s wergild. By a law of Chlovis whoever saved a man from the gallows paid his wergild.
[296] Eth. I. 1. Wil. Conq., I. 11. Leg. Hen., I. lxvi., 8–10. Lex. Sax. Tit. 2. As the penalties of this period, when not capital, were invariably fines, it is probable that the expression “a pound oath,” or “swearing for so many hydes,” meant that the compurgator, like the modern bail, was to be up to a certain point “a man of substance.”
[297] Lib. de Ben. 98.