88. If a man bind a man’s esne, vi scillings bot.
There is nothing in these clauses, I think, to show that the bot was payable to any one but the owner of the esne.
What the ‘full worth’ of the esne was we are not told.
IV. THE LAWS OF HLOTHÆRE AND EADRIC, A.D. 685-6.
Between the date of the Laws of Ethelbert and those of other Kentish kings which have been preserved nearly a century had intervened. So that these later laws of Kent are nearly contemporary with King Ine’s Dooms of Wessex.
Eorlcund and ceorlisc classes.
As in Ethelbert’s laws, the main division of classes of freemen seems still to have been that between eorlcund and ceorlisc. But we get further valuable information.
The Laws of Hlothære and Eadric open with clauses which seem to fix the wergeld of the eorl at three times that of the ordinary freeman.
The owner’s liability for an esne’s homicides.
They deal with the liability of an owner of an esne[307] for his servant’s homicides.