If a man draw a weapon where men are drinking and no harm be done, then a scilling to him who owns the flet and xii scillings to the King.
Gif ꝥ flet geblodgad wyrðe forgylde þem mæn his mund-byrd ⁊ cyninge l. scill.
If the flet be stained with blood, let him pay to the man [who owns the flet] his mund-byrd and 50 scillings to the King.
Mund-byrd of the King still 50 scillings and of the ceorl 6.
Thus we have again the mund-byrds of King Ethelbert’s Laws:—
- Of the King 50 scillings.
- Of the ceorl 6 scillings.
The crime of killing another in a drinking bout is a breach of the mund of the owner of the ‘flet’ as well as a breach of the peace of the King.
V. THE LAWS OF KING WIHTRÆD, A.D. 690-696.
One more chance remains for further information regarding Kentish wergelds, viz. in the ‘Laws of King Wihtræd,’ who became King of the Kentish men about A.D. 690 and, according to Bede, died A.D. 725. A century had passed since the Laws of Ethelbert were enacted, in the time of St. Augustine. Brihtwald was now Archbishop of Canterbury, and at an assembly of Church and people ‘the great men decreed, with the suffrage of all, these dooms, and added them to the lawful customs of the Kentish men.’ These laws are mainly ecclesiastical both in their origin and subject.
Mund-byrd of King and Church both 50 scillings, and so no change in the Kentish currency.