Si sponsa virum suum supervixerit, dotem et maritacionem suam, cartarum instrumentis vel testium exhibicionibus ei traditam, perpetualiter habeat, et morgangivam suam et terciam partem de omni collaboracione sua, preter vestes et lectum suum; et si quid ex eis in elemosinis vel communi necessitate consumpserit, nichil inde recipiat.
(ss. 22-23). If the wife survive her husband let her have permanently her dower and her ‘maritagium’ given to her by written instruments or production of witnesses, and her ‘morgengift’ and a third part of all joint acquisition, besides clothes and her bed, and let her receive nothing in respect of what has been consumed in charity or common necessity.
Si mulier absque liberis moriatur, parentes ejus cum marito suo partem suam dividant.
If a woman die without children her parentes divide her share with the husband.
These statements are valuable evidence that, in regard to the position of a wife, Anglo-Saxon custom was very nearly the same as Cymric custom and that of the Bretts and Scots. And they are the more important as stating in black and white what is only to be inferred from isolated statements in earlier laws.
We now pass to c. LXXVI., De precio cujuslibet, containing information as to the mode of procedure in the payment of wergeld.
After stating that if a man be slain he is to be paid for according to his birth, the clause proceeds thus:—
Sureties for wergeld 8 of paternal and 4 of maternal kindred.
Et rectum est ut homicida, postquam weregildum vadiaverit inveniat wereplegios, sicut ad eam pertinebit, i. de thaino debent dari xii wereplegii, viii de parte patris, et iiii de cognacione matris; et cum hoc factum erit, elevetur inter eos pax regis in omni weregildo, et debet halsfang primo reddi, sicut were modus erit.