CHAPTER X.
ANGLO-SAXON CUSTOM FROM THE NORMAN POINT OF VIEW.
I. ANGLO-SAXON CUSTOM AS APPLIED TO NORMANS.
The Kentish laws to be treated apart.
In approaching the question of Anglo-Saxon tribal custom it is needful to make a clear distinction between the laws of the Kentish kings and the other Anglo-Saxon laws.
The laws of the Kentish kings are known only in the MS.—the Textus Roffensis—compiled or collected by Ernulf, Bishop of Rochester from 1115 to 1125, and are not included in the other collections containing the laws of King Alfred and Ine.
The evidence for Kentish custom seems, therefore, to be independent of that of Wessex or Mercia or Northumbria. Further, in the so-called ‘Laws of Henry I.’ at the conclusion of the statement of the customs as to homicide in s. LXXVI. it is distinctly stated that the wergelds in Kent differed much from those of Wessex both as regards villani and barones.
It will therefore be necessary to examine the Kentish laws separately from the others.
Laws of Henry I.
On the whole, with regard to the others, it seems best to resort to the method of proceeding from the later to the earlier evidence and to begin with the so-called ‘Laws of Henry I.,’ as a Norman though unofficial view of what Anglo-Saxon custom was or had been before the Conquest.
When a Norman was killed.