Let us for a moment try to recognise the position to which so far the Dooms of Ine have brought us.
We seem able in those already quoted to trace a process at work combining distinctions of classes of different origins and based upon different lines of thought.
We find a very marked and prominent division of classes into gesithcund and ceorlisc alongside of hardly more than incidental mention of the division of classes so prominent afterwards into twelve-hynde and twy-hynde. In King Alfred’s Laws we could trace no practical distinction between the twy-hynde and ceorlisc classes. We could not distinguish between them. All distinction at any rate evaded our notice. We have now to ask the double question what was the distinction between gesithcund and twelve-hynde, as well as what was the distinction between ceorlisc and twy-hynde.
The chief question raised by King Alfred’s Laws was whether any great distinction existed between the ‘ceorl who sits on gafol land’ and other members of the ceorlisc class. The Laws of King Alfred gave us no clue on this point. It seemed as though, after all, the ceorlisc class must have been so generally gafol-geldas that practically the twy-hynde and ceorlisc class might be spoken of roughly and inclusively as ‘ceorls who sit on gafol land,’ and that this ‘sitting on gafol land’ might be, after all, the fairly distinctive mark of the ceorlisc class for whom King Alfred claimed a twy-hynde wergeld as ‘equally dear’ with the Danish lysing.
The gafol-gelda and gebur of Ine’s laws put in the place of the ceorlisc man of King Alfred.
And now in this clause 6 of King Ine’s Laws we find the gafol-gelda or gebur put directly into the place of the ceorlisc man of King Alfred’s Laws with the same penalty of six scillings payable to him for fighting in his house or his ‘flet.’
King Alfred’s Laws, s. 39.
If any one fight in a ceorlisc man’s flet, with six scillings let him make bot to the ceorl.
King Ine’s Laws, s. 6.