In the first two clauses the Church was declared to be ‘free from gafols,’ and the mund-byrd of the Church was declared to be the same as the King’s, viz. fifty scillings—as in Ethelbert’s Laws. There is therefore no marked change in the Kentish currency, though by this time it must have been almost entirely silver so far as any Kentish coinage was concerned.
Clause 5 introduces us for the first time in the Kentish laws to the distinction between the gesithcund and ceorlisc classes.
Gif þæs geweorðe gesiðcundne mannan ofer þis gemot ꝥ he unriht hæmed genime ofer cingæs bebod ⁊ biscopes ⁊ boca dom se ꝥ gebete his dryhtne .c. scill. an eald reht. Gif hit ceorlisc man sie gebete .l. scill.…
When it happens to a gesithcundman after this gemot that he enters into unlawful marriage against the command of the King and the bishop and the book’s doom, let him make bot for it to his lord with 100 scillings according to ancient law. If he be a ceorlisc man, let him make bot with 50 scillings.…
It would not do to conclude from this single allusion to gesithcund and ceorlisc men that the Kentish division of classes—eorlisc and ceorlisc—had given way before the Wessex division of classes—gesithcund and ceorlisc.
There had been no interval between this and the last set of Kentish laws long enough to have made likely any radical change in social conditions, and as the ‘ancient law’ alluded to was probably ecclesiastical and not especially Kentish, either in its origin or its terms, it would not be wise to build anything upon the use of the word ‘gesithcund’ beyond recognising the natural tendency of neighbouring peoples under the same ecclesiastical influence to approximate in phraseology especially in regard to matters of general ecclesiastical interest.
Clauses which follow regulating the penalties for work on Sundays, or neglect of baptism, or a ceorl’s making offerings to devils without his wife’s knowledge, or a man’s giving flesh meat to his family on fast days, do not interest us in this inquiry further than as revealing lingering traces of paganism and the ecclesiastical character of these laws of Wihtræd.
There are, however, a few clauses which incidentally come within the lines of our inquiry.
The position of the freedman under Kentish custom.
Clause 8 is especially interesting as showing that when freedom was given by a lord to his man and he became folkfree, still, even though he left the district, his inheritance, his wergeld, and the mund of his family remained with the freedom-giver.