If a freeman steal from the King, let him pay ninefold.
It seems at first sight hardly likely that the Archbishop should be compensated elevenfold and the King only ninefold, but as this is repeated in the statement of the Kentish law in the fragment ‘Of Grith and of Mund’ the text may be taken as correct.
Clause 5 enacts:—
Gif in cyninges túne man mannan ofslea .l. scill. gebete.
If a man slay another in the King’s tun, let him make bot with 50 scillings.
The bot here again is evidently the mund-byrd payable to the King for breach of his protection, i.e. fifty Kentish scillings.
Clause 6 enacts:—
Gif man frigne mannan ofsleahð cyninge .l. scill to drightin-beage.
If any one slay a freeman, 50 scillings to the King as drihtin-beag.
Here again the payment is to the King, but in this case, if the word is to be taken literally, it is not perhaps for breach of his peace, but for the killing of his man. He claims it as his ‘drihtin-beag’ or lord’s-ring. It is, to use the later Saxon phrase, the King’s manbot or value to him of his man killed.