Qui scienter fregerit eam [pacem regis] … lege Anglorum suum were, i. precium suum, et manbote de occisis erga dominos quorum homines interfecti erant. Manbote in Danelaga, de vilano et de socheman, xii oras; de liberis hominibus iii marcas. Manbote in lege Anglorum, regi et archiepiscopo, iii marc̄ de hominibus suis; episcopo comitatus, comiti comitatus, et dapifero regis, xx soƚ; baronibus ceteris, x soliđ. Emendacionem faciat parentibus, aut guerram paciatur, unde Angli proverbium habebant: Biege spere of side oðer bere, quod est dicere, lanceam eme de latere aut fer eam.
He who knowingly breaks the king’s peace … by the law of the English pays his were, i.e. pretium suum, and manbot of persons killed to the lords whose men have been killed. Manbote in Danelaga of villanus and socheman xii ores, of liberi homines iii marks.[212] Manbot in English law to the king and archbishop iii marks for their men; to the bishop and earl of a county and dapifer of the king xxs.: other barons xs. Let him make amends to the parentes or suffer feud. Hence the English have a proverb, ‘Buy off the spear or bear it.’
This chapter relates chiefly to the breach of the king’s peace on the king’s highways &c., but it clearly confirms the meaning of the manbot as the payment to the lord for his man and as quite distinct from the wergeld to the parentes of the slain.
Manbot of socheman and villanus alike in the Danelaga.
It may seem strange at first sight that according to this clause the manbot in the Danelaga of the villanus and the socheman should be alike, viz. 12 ores of silver, and further that the villanus and socheman should not be included as liberi homines, the manbot of the latter being double their manbot, viz. three marks or 24 ores.
The explanation of the equal manbot of villani and sochemen may partly be found in the tendency after the Conquest to class together all subordinate tenants rendering manual or agricultural services to the landlord as villani, and to ignore the differences in origin between the various classes of tenants of this kind. Still if at this point of our inquiry the relative positions of the sochmanni of the Danish districts and the villani of ordinary English manors were the question under discussion, it would be fair in explanation of the equality in manbot to point out how very nearly the services of the two classes seem to have corresponded so far as their value to the lord was concerned.[213]
The loss to the lord of the twelve-hyndeman was probably reckoned as of greater money value than that of the villanus or socheman, because of the higher grade or character of his military and judicial services as compared with the agricultural services of the villanus and socheman.
However this may be, these considerations confirm the importance of the distinction between the manbot which varies according to the value or loss to the lord of the person slain, and is therefore payable to him, and the wergeld payable to the parentes of the person slain which varied according to the grade in social rank in which he was born or to which he may have sometimes risen.
Further, this distinction between the wergeld and the manbot becomes all the clearer when we turn to the evidence given in the Laws of Henry I. regarding the custom of Wessex in respect of the homicide of slaves.