The usual statement in Continental and Anglo-Saxon laws as regards compurgation is that a man must clear himself by his oath and the oaths of so many oath-helpers. But in the Laws of Ine, with which the Archbishop was doubtless conversant, another method was followed in some cases. A man must clear himself, not with the oaths of so many oath-helpers, but with an oath of so many hides. The claim of the Archbishop seems to favour the view, suggested but hardly established by various passages in the Laws of Ine, that the twelve-hyndeman’s oath was reckoned at 120 hides.[246]
Oaths of so many hides.
All that one can say is that the Archbishop in claiming that the Northumbrian priest’s oath should be regarded as one of ‘120 tributarii’ seems to have had in his mind what was afterwards generally conceded, i.e. that the priest should be put, in social position, on a par with the thane or twelve-hynde man. Moreover, the Archbishop’s use in this connection of the phrase ‘so many tributarii’ or ‘manentes,’ instead of so many ‘hides,’ is interesting. It helps us to understand that the hide as used in the Laws of Ine was probably the same fiscal or gafol paying unit as the familia of Bede.
Another clause in this interesting document bears more directly upon the question of homicide, and it is valuable as giving information quite independent of the Laws.
It is the answer of the Archbishop to the question, ‘What if a layman shall kill a cleric or a monk, whether the precium sanguinis according to the law natalium parentum shall be paid to his near relations or whether his seniores are to be satisfied by a larger amount—which does your Unanimity sanction?’
The reply is as follows:—
The wergelds of the clergy to be paid to the church.
Quicunque vero ex laicis occiderit episcopum, presbiterum, vel diaconum, aut monachum, agat pœnitentiam secundum gradus pœnitentiæ constitutos, et reddat precium æcclesiæ suæ; pro episcopo secundum [placitum] universalis consilii, pro presbitero octingentos siclos, pro diacono sexingentos, pro monacho vero quadringentos argenteos; nisi aut dignitas natalium vel nobilitas generis majus reposcat precium. Non enim justum est, ut servitium sanctæ professionis in meliori gradu perdat quod exterior vita sub laico habitu habuisse jure parentum dinoscitur.
Whoever indeed of laymen shall have killed a bishop, priest, or deacon or monk shall do penance according to the constituted scale of penitentials, and let him pay the price to his church—for a bishop according to [the decision] of a general Council:
| For a priest | 800 sicli |
| For a deacon | 600 sicli |
| But for a monk | 400 argentei[247] |