Burg-bryce of various classes.
Burg-bryce mon sceal betan c. xx scill. kyniges ⁊ biscepes þær his rice bið. Ealdormonnes lxxx scill. Kyniges þegnes lx scill. Gesiðcundes monnes land-hæbbendes xxxv scill. ⁊ be þon ansacan.
(45) Bot shall be made for the King’s burg-bryce, and a bishop’s where his jurisdiction is, with cxx shillings; for an ealdorman’s with lxxx shillings; for a King’s thane’s with lx shillings; for that of a gesithcund-man having land with xxxv shillings: and according to this let them make legal denial.
The burg-bryce is the same thing as the burh-bryce—the breaking into the burh. And if we compare the ‘bots’ of this clause with the burh-bryce of King Alfred’s s. 40 (supra, p. 372) we see that he was not merely copying King Ine’s clause. Nearly as they may resemble one another, there are marked differences between the two clauses.
The king’s burh-bryce in King Ine’s Laws is the same as King Alfred’s. The ealdorman’s is eighty scillings instead of sixty. The king’s thane takes the ealdorman’s place with sixty, and the gesithcund-man’s burh-bryce in King Ine’s Laws is practically the same as the twelve-hyndeman’s in King Alfred’s laws.
The gesithcund-man’s judicial position.
The gesithcund-man we have met before in one of the fragments of early English law, but so far as relates to Wessex he appears in the Dooms of Ine for the first and last time, and we shall have to consider by-and-by how far he is the same person as the twelve-hyndeman. But for the present it is sufficient to note that he is mentioned along with the king’s thane and the ealdorman apparently in order to state the extent to which his oath was to be taken as valid in judicial evidence, or whatever is meant by the words ‘and according to this make legal denial.’
Laws as to theft.
The chief obstacle to the maintenance of the peace seems to have been the frequency of thefts and homicide of all kinds. The connection between homicide and theft is the subject of several clauses in the Laws of Ine. And as they bring into notice the liability of the kindred it may be well to consider them in order.