Gif man his mæn an wiofode freols gefe se sie folc-fry. freolsgefa age his erfe ænde wer-geld ⁊ munde þare hina sie ofer mearce þær he wille.
If any one give freedom to his man at the altar, let him be folkfree; let the freedom-giver keep the heritage and wergeld and the mund of his family, be he over the march wherever he will.
His wergeld goes to his lord.
Here tribal custom asserts itself. The freedman, though freed at the altar, is to be folkfree, and yet, although folkfree and able to go wherever he will, he cannot inherit, because he is nobody’s heir. He had no free parents from whom to inherit. His lord inherited what his unfree man might leave behind him. The freedman’s wergeld if he were slain still went to his lord, for he had no free kindred to claim it. His family remained in the lord’s mund unless they also had been set free.
These points were doubtless all incident to the position of a newly made freedman under Kentish custom, and this enactment was probably needful only to make it clear that freedom given at the altar, whatever churchmen might think, was not to modify the customary rules incident to freedom-giving. The evidence of the clause is, however, valuable because for one moment it accidentally lifts the veil and shows that Kentish tribal custom was in these matters much the same as we have found tribal custom elsewhere, and it is particularly valuable as direct evidence that there was a class of freedmen under Kentish custom as everywhere else.
There are also the following clauses on oaths.
Clauses on oaths of different persons.
Biscopes word ⁊ cyninges sie unlægne buton æðe.
16. A bishop’s and a King’s word is unimpeachable without an oath.
Mynstres aldor hine cænne in preostes canne.