In the council of Berghamstead, near Canterbury, held in 697, under Withred, king of Kent, at which Gebmund, bishop of Rochester, was present, and where a sort of parliament also assembled and gave a civil sanction to the temporal enactments and penalties of the canons, several regulations were made concerning slaves. The Saxon MS. is the adoption of the canons into the common law of Canterbury, anti is entitled “The Judgments of Withred.”
The ninth canon in this collection is the following:
Si quis servum suum ad altare manumiserit, liber esto, et habilis sit ad gaudendum hereditate et wirigildo, et fas sit ei ubi volet sine limite versari.
“If any person shall manumit his servant at the altar, let him be free, and capable of enjoying inheritance and weregild, and let it be lawful for him to dwell where he pleases without limit.”
The tenth canon is:
Si in vesperâ præcedente diem solis postquam sol occubuit, aut in vesperâ præcedente diem lunæ post occasum solis, servus ex mandato domini sui opus aliquod servile egerit, dominus factum octoginta solidis luito.
“If on the evening preceding Sunday, after the sun has set, or on the evening preceding Monday, after the setting of the sun, a slave shall do any servile work by command of his master, let the master compensate the deed by eighty shillings.”
The eleventh:
Si servus hisce diebus itineraverit, domino pendat sex solidos, aut flagello cædatur.
“If a servant shall have journeyed on these days, let him pay six shillings to his master, or be cut with a whip.”