These clauses seem to be taken from another document of this period,[224] headed ‘Of Church grith,’ which is printed by Thorpe among the Laws of Ethelred.
Again, the laws decreed by Ethelred and his witan at Wantage[225] respecting ‘frith-bot’ commence with the decree that ‘grith should stand henceforth as it originally stood in the days of his [the king’s] forefathers.’ So that again ancient custom is confirmed rather than new law enacted.
The grith of various moots.
This decree of Wantage relates, not, like Cnut’s law, to the grith of the Church, but to the grith of various assemblies or courts. Crimes committed within the grith or peace given by the king’s own hand (that is, the king’s ‘hand-grith’ of the other documents) is again botless. The grith which the ealdorman and the king’s reeve give in the assembly of the ‘five-burgs’ if broken involves a bot of 1200 (scillings?), that given by a burh-assembly 600, that by a wapentake 100, that in an alehouse ‘for a dead man vi half-marks and for a living one xii ores.’
In a further clause (s. 12) it is stated that in a king’s suit the deposit or ‘wed’ was to be of vi half-marks, in an eorl’s and a bishop’s of xii ores, and in a thane’s of vi ores. Here both English and Danish currencies are used. The law is common to both peoples.
The principle of the ‘grith’ or ‘frith’ is alike for both English and Danes, and it does not seem that Cnut had any intention of altering what had been law in this respect under his English predecessor.
Grith-bryce and mund-bryce the same thing.
In s. 3 of Cnut’s Church laws, dealing with crimes less than homicide, he seems to treat the ‘grith’ of his new law and the ‘mund-bryce’ of old law as practically the same thing, and this clause according to the text of MS. G.[226] contains an interesting allusion to Kentish as well as other English law.
Heafod mynstres griðbryce is æt bot wyrþum þingū be cinges munde. ꝥ is mid · v · pundum on Engla lage ⁊ on cent lande æt þā mund bryce · v · pund þā cingce. ⁊ þreo þā arceƀ. ⁊ medemran mynstres mid · cxx · scill. ꝥæ is be cingres wite. ⁊ þonne gyt læssan þær lytel þeowdom sig ⁊ leger-stow þeah sig mid lx scill. and feald cyricean þær leger-scow ne sig mid xxx scyll.