Under clerical influence the single oath of the stranger to be taken as good.
These statements regarding oaths, like other laws of Wihtræd, betray their ecclesiastical origin, and following directly after the imposition of penalties for what may be called ecclesiastical sins, very difficult of proof, seem to have been inserted with special reference to them. They are interesting, however, as reminding us again that the system of oath-helpers was not absent from Kentish custom.
Section 20 of this clause is also interesting, which places the stranger (gest)—may we not say the ‘King’s guest’?—in the same position as the ‘King’s thane’ as to the validity of his single oath. Both seem to be specially under the King’s protection: in the case of the King’s thane, on account of his official or military position; in the case of the stranger, probably because of the absence of his kindred. The King being in the place of kin to the stranger, his single oath is accepted.
These laws end with clauses referring to theft more or less closely resembling those so prominent in King Ine’s Dooms.
Clauses as to theft like those in Ine’s laws.
They state that a thief slain as a thief was to be without wergeld. If a freeman were caught in the act of thieving, the King might either kill him, or sell him over sea, or release him on payment of his wergeld. He who should seize and hold him was to be entitled to the half-wergeld, or if he were put to death to seventy scillings. A man coming from far or a foreigner, when off the public way, who should neither call aloud nor blow a horn, was to be taken to be a thief, and put to death or redeemed by a wergeld.
The last clause resembles Ine s. 20 so closely as to suggest a common origin.
(Wihtræd, 28)
Gif feorran cumen man oþþe fræmde buton wege gange ⁊ he þonne nawðer ne hryme ne he horn blawe for ðeof he bid to profianne oþþe to sleanne oþþe to alysenne.
(Ine, 20)