A mass-priest’s oath and a secular thane’s are in English-law reckoned of equal value; and by reason of the seven church-degrees that the mass-priest through the grace of God has acquired he is worthy of thane-right.
The other fragment of Mercian law is as follows:—
Mercian wergelds.
Ceorles wer-gild is on Myrcna lage cc scill. Ðegnes wer-gild is syx swa micel ꝥ bið xii hund scill. Ðonne bið cynges anfeald wer-gild vi þegna wer be Myrcna lage ꝥ is xxx þusend sceatta ⁊ ꝥ bið ealles cxx punda. Swa micel is þæs wer-gildes on folces folc-rihtes be Myrcna lage. And for þam cyne-dome geborað oðer swilc to bote on cyne-gilde. Se wer gebirað magum ⁊ seo cyne-bot þam leodum.
A ceorl’s wergeld is by Mercian law cc scillings. A thane’s wergeld is six times as much, i.e. xii hundred scillings. Then is a king’s simple wergeld vi thanes’ wer by Mercian law, i.e. xxx thousand sceatts, and that is altogether cxx pounds. So much is the wergeld in the people’s folkright by Mercian law. And for the ‘Cynedom’ there is due another such sum as bot for cyne-gild. The wer belongs to the kindred and the cynebot to the people.
The Mercian wergeld of both twy-hynde and twelve-hynde men is thus stated in scillings, as usual, and the king’s wergeld—six times the thane’s—would equal 7200 scillings. The Mercian scilling was 4d., and thus, as stated in the text, the king’s wergeld would equal exactly 120l. or 28,800 pence or sceatts (in round numbers 30,000 sceatts).
This is useful as evidence that the sceatt of this Mercian wergeld was the silver penny of the Anglo-Saxon currency of 28·8 wheat-grains—i.e. of the Sceatt series—before Offa and Alfred, following the example of Charlemagne, superseded the ‘sceatt’ by the ‘penny’ of 32 wheat-grains.
Fragment of North People’s Law.
The fragments printed by Thorpe under the heading ‘North People’s Law’ and by Schmid in his ‘Anhang VII.’ seem to belong to Northumbria or more generally to the Danelaga. Schmid suggests that the ‘North people’ were the North folk of East Anglia. This, however, is perhaps more than doubtful, especially when it is considered that the Viking ‘armies’ had established themselves, not only in East Anglia and Mercia, but still more completely in Northumbria, many years before the struggle with Wessex had ended in the compact between Alfred and Guthrum.
The fragment of ‘North People’s Law’[236] opens with the statement that the king’s gild is 30,000 thrymsas—15,000 for the wergeld and 15,000 for the people (leodum).