If the offender were not slain or abused,[[31]] if he did not escape and live as an outlaw and a “wolf’s head”[[32]] (which was frequently done,[[33]] for there were some ten men outlawed[[34]] to every one hanged[[35]]), he might be sold[[36]] as a wite theow[[37]] into penal slavery.[[38]] For there were slaves as a class in Christendom and in England up to the twelfth century,[[39]] and they being helpless, like our “submerged” masses, were of little account at all in the community.
Derived mainly from the conquered taken in wars and raids,[[40]] their ranks were recruited by men sold for their offences, and likewise, it is said, from those who sold themselves in times of starvation;[[41]] many were sent as slaves beyond the seas,[[42]] and the fact that we find this custom repeatedly prohibited[[43]] testifies also to its prevalence.[[44]]
From the poor slaves there need be no fear of vengeance or retaliation; they were a voteless minority amidst Saxon freemen. If a slave were slain only eight shillings were payable to his kinsfolk,[[45]] while a man-bōt of thirty shillings was claimed by his master.[[46]] And that, it would seem, was all on the part of the State.[[47]] The Church, however, to its credit, imposed a penance, a two years’ fast.[[48]] Other injuries to the theow (slave) were treated with proportional mildness,[[49]] but of Church laws and discipline I shall have to speak presently.[[50]]
For the damage done by his slave the master was liable,[[51]] as for a trespass by his cattle.[[52]] For the more serious offences the theow would be handed over to the kinsfolk of the injured party, unless perchance his master should redeem him by payment.[[53]] If upon accusation he failed at the ordeal, he was to be forthwith branded the first time;[[54]] but the second conviction would be capital, “seconda vice non compenset aliquid nisi caput.”[[55]]
Apart from legal or revengeful penalties for wrongs done to any freeman,[[56]] the theow was absolutely at the mercy of his master.[[57]] If he were not allowed to “redeem his hide” by such small compensation or atonement of which he was capable, he might have one leg fastened by a ring to a stake, round which he would be lashed with a three-thonged whip.[[58]] It was composed of cords knotted at the ends.[[59]] If a ceorl were goaded into homicide, vengeance might then be taken upon six of his kinsfolk[[60]] (upon the principle that the thane had six times his value,[[61]] see wer-gilds, ante, and Maitland, Domesday Book, p. 53). If a theow killed his lord[[62]] he was to perish in torments;[[63]] for revenge was sweet,[[64]] and the strong took it without stint.[[65]]
Clearly, then, from the nature of early Saxon society, elaborate penal machinery had no place. The freemen atoned for their transgressions with fines when possible, and by slavery, mutilation, outlawry, or death when they could not pay. Cruelly as the slaves might be flogged or slaughtered, there were no prisons in the land even for them.[[66]] The villages were mere groups of wooden homesteads with barns and cattle sheds surrounded by rough stockades and destitute of roads or communications. Even the palace of the king was a long wooden hall with numerous outhouses, for the English built no stone houses and burnt down those of their Roman predecessors.[[67]]
The Teutons, according to Tacitus, abhorred walled towns as the defences of slavery and the graves of freedom. The Frisians forbade the construction of any walls more than 12 feet high.[[68]] In the course of time the crown, or central government, grew in power; the king, and even the great lords, spiritual and temporal, were able to enforce obedience and order, at any rate upon those in their neighbourhood.[[69]] The royal authority could defy the vendetta, and from very early times had claimed a share in the compensation,[[70]] so that, along with the wer-gild, payable to the injured party, the wite, or additional fine, had to be paid to the sovereign (or overlord) for the disturbance of his peace.[[71]]
Sometimes he would take vengeance for the State or for an aggrieved person.[[72]] Thus in the reign of Æthelstan a man might forfeit his hand for coining, and have it nailed over the door of the mint;[[73]] and in the reign of Cnut a woman might lose her nose and ears if she committed adultery. In the early period these mutilations appear to have often been intended to be mortal, for in the laws of Alfred and Guthrum we read that “If a malefactor, having forfeited himself, has had a limb cut off, and, being left to himself, survive the third night; afterwards he that is willing to take care of his sore and soul may help him with the Bishop’s leave.”[[74]]
But the maimed criminals were also allowed at large to be a living warning to others. That the Saxons could be cruel enough when bōt was not made, and to habitual criminals and slaves, we have seen already; how barbarous the amputations were may be gleaned from the words of our Danish monarch: “... At the second time let there be no other bōt if he be foul” (at the ordeal) “than that his hands be cut off or his feet, or both according as the deed may be, and if then he have wrought yet greater wrong, then let his eyes be put out, or his nose and his ears and the upper lip be cut off; or let him be scalped ... so that punishment be inflicted and also the soul preserved.”[[75]]
William the Norman enjoined that offenders should not be slain outright, but hacked about.[[76]] “Interdicimus,” he commands, “eciam ne quis occidatur vel suspendatur pro aliqua culpa sed enerventur oculi, et abscindantur pedes vel testiculi, vel manus ita quod truncus remaneat vivus in signum prodicionis et nequicie sue.”[[77]]