[881] K. 114 (i. 139); E. 49: ‘et cum omni tributo quod regibus inde dabatur.’ So by a deed of A.D. 762, K. 109 (i. 133), B. i. 272, a thegn states that king Æthelbert gave him a villa ‘cum tributo illius possidendam’ and then proceeds to give this villa to a church ‘cum tributo illius.’
[882] E. 4; B. M. Facs. iv. 1: ‘et semper liber permaneat omnibus habentibus ab omnibus duris secularibus, notis et ignotis, praeter arcem et pontem ac vulgare militiam.’
[883] K. 77 (i. 92); E. 24; B. M. Facs. i. 6: ‘Et ius regium in ea deinceps nullum repperiatur omnino, excepto dumtaxat tale quale generale est in universis ecclesiasticis terris quae in hac Cantia esse noscuntur.’
[884] K. 90 (i. 108); E. 40: ‘Et ut ab omni tributo vectigalium operum onerumque saecularium sit libera in perpetuum, pro mercede aeternae retributionis, regali potestate decernens statuo; tantum ut deo omnipotenti ex eodem agello aecclesiasticae servitutis famulatum impendat.’
[885] K. 56 (i. 64); H. & S. iii. 278; B. i. 171. The charter is of fairly good repute, but nothing that comes from Evesham is beyond suspicion. It is almost impossible to translate these early books without making their language too definite. How, for instance shall we render ‘nulli, neque principi, neque praefecto, neque tiranno alicui pascui constituantur’?
[886] Ine, 70, § 1.
[887] Thorpe, Gloss, s. v. Foster, thinks that this law has to do with the fostering of a child. Schmid is inclined to hold that it speaks of a rent payable to a landlord.
[888] Ine, 64–6: ‘He who has 20 hides must show 12 hides of cultivated land if he wishes to go away. He who has 10 hides shall show 6 hides of cultivated land. He who has 3 hides let him show one and a half.’ The persons with whom these laws deal are certainly not ascripti glebae; they are very great men. Then we must read c. 63: ‘If a gesithcundman go away, then may he have his reeve with him and his smith and his child’s fosterer’; and then c. 68: ‘If a gesithcundman be driven off, let him be driven from the dwelling (botle), not from the set land (naes þaere setene).’ The king’s gesiths have been taking up large grants of waste land and putting under-tenants on the soil. These great folk must not fling up their holdings until they have brought the land into cultivation. If they do abandon their land, they may take away with them only three of their dependants. If they are evicted by some adverse claimant this is not to harm their under-tenants; they are to be driven from the botl, that is from the chief house, but not from the land that they have set out to husbandmen. These last are to enjoy a secure title. We must leave to linguists the question whether we have rightly understood the difficult seten; but these chapters, together with c. 67, which deals with the relations between these lords and their husbandmen, seem to point to some great scheme for colonizing a newly-conquered district.
[889] Kemble, Saxons, i. 294–8; ii. 58.
[890] Karl Lehmann, Abhandlungen zur Germanischen Rechtsgeschichte, 1888; Liber Census Daniae, ed. O. Nielsen, 1879.