Cyninges hors-wealh seþe him mæge geærendian þæs wer-gield bið cc scill.
(33) The king’s ‘horse-wealh’ who can do his errands, his wergeld shall be cc scillings.
It will be noticed that the wergeld of the Wilisc man with one hide of land is one fifth of the wergeld of the wealh with five hides, so that wealhs and Wilisc men seem to be treated on the same lines—as if the two words meant the same thing.
The Gallo-Roman ‘wala.’
It is not easy to draw a distinction between the ‘wealh’ and the ‘Wilisc’ man. ‘Wilisc’ is certainly used as the adjective corresponding to ‘wealh,’ though sometimes (as e.g. in ‘Wilisc ale’) for something specially Welsh. In the Lex Salica, as we have seen, the Gallo-Roman living under Roman law, according to the Malberg gloss was a ‘Wala’ with a wergeld half that of the ‘ingenuus’ living under Salic law. And, without pushing this meaning so far as Mr. Coote was inclined to do, we may fairly, I think, look upon the word ‘wealh’ as generally embracing not only natives of Wales and West Wales, but also the wider class of persons of the conquered populations, whether Welsh or Britons or Romano-Britons, who were not recognised as of Anglo-Saxon blood.
The Wallerwente of Yorkshire.
We may call in the later evidence of the Northumbrian Priest-law[250] in illustration. The use of ores and half-marks in this document and its being, so to speak, domiciled in York, seem to connect it with the period of the Northmen’s conquest of Northumbria, when York was its capital and as yet the tide of battle had not been turned—i.e. shortly before the date of the Compact between Alfred and Guthrum. In this Priest-law the penalty for the practice of heathen rites on the part of a king’s thane was ten half-marks, and if he wished to deny the charge it must be with ten named by himself, ten named by his kindred (maga), and ten Wallerwente, and if he failed in the denial he had to pay the ten half-marks, half of which went to the church and half to the king.
And so also in the case of the ‘landagende man’ who had to pay six half-marks: he too must deny with as many of his like (gelicena) and as many wente as the king’s thane. And so also in the case of a ‘cyrlisc’ man.
It is quite clear that these Wallerwente were free inhabitants of the district, for their oaths were taken in evidence, which would not have been done had they been theows. The Wallerwente were, on the other hand, not recognised as ‘ceorlisc’ Saxons. They were obviously the native Celtic inhabitants of the great plain of York[251]—the gwent or basin of the Derwent and the Ouse. The locality is fixed by the clause which restricts the Sabbath day’s journey on necessity to six miles out of York.