Extent of the area of the grith.
There is finally a fragment[230] which fixes the extent of the king’s ‘grith’ to be ‘three miles and three furlongs and three acre breadths and nine feet and nine hand breadths and nine barleycorns from the “burhgeat” where the king is.’
Within this area the ‘grith’ or protection of the king extends, and the use of the word ‘grith’ seems to place this fragment among those belonging to the Danish group.
In this ‘grith’ or area of protection, taken together with the grith of various persons in regard to the duration of the protection, and the grith of the various assemblies or courts, and, finally, in the mund of various persons marked by the amount of the mund-bryce, there is surely a foundation in ancient custom for the jurisdiction involved in the sac and soc of the later period.
The soc and sac of later laws.
We have seen in the clauses of the so-called Laws of Henry I. allusion to the ‘sac and soc’ of the lord on whose land a homicide has been perpetrated and under whose jurisdiction the wed or pledge has been given for the payment of wergeld. According to earlier phraseology, the lord’s grith or peace has been broken. He has a territorial jurisdiction over the giving of the wed by which it is to be restored, and he is entitled to fightwite accordingly. If his own man has been slain, whether on his own land or not, his mund has been broken and the manbot of his man is payable to him. The phrase ‘soc and sac’ is probably of Scandinavian origin. It does not seem to go back earlier than the time of Cnut.[231] It is not found in his laws. But the principle at the root of the ‘grith’ and the ‘mund’ was not one newly introduced at this period. We shall find it again in the earliest laws, and we have already found it at work under Irish custom. The Irish chieftain’s ‘precinct’ or area of protection extended on his ‘green’ as far as he could throw his hammer, and the value of his protection varied, as we have seen, with his ‘honour price.’
III. THE ‘FRITH’ BETWEEN ETHELRED II. AND OLAF TRYGGVASON, A.D. 993.
Frith of A.D. 993.
The real Danish invasion of England, which ended in the accession of Cnut to the kingdom of all England, commenced with the arrival of Olaf (Tryggvason), afterwards King of Norway, in A.D. 991. The fatal battle of Malden had been fought and 10,000 pounds of silver paid for a temporary peace. At length the treaty was made between Ethelred and Olaf on the latter embracing Christianity.
Freeman’s wergeld 25 pounds of silver. Slave valued at one pound.