Servitude ceased by voluntary or compulsory manumission on the part of the lord; the latter case being that where the services of the slave were forfeited through the misconduct of the master. And as loss of liberty must be considered in the main as a consequence of the public law, understood in the general, and expressed in the particular case, so must it I think be asserted, that at first emancipation depended in some degree upon the popular will as well as the mercy or caprice of private individuals. It is no doubt true, that at a period when what we now call crimes were rather considered in the light of civil injuries, for which satisfaction was due to the parties injured, it might seem reasonable to leave the latter in possession of the power to assess the minimum, at least, of his own satisfaction: to allow him to decide how long a period of servitude he would content himself with, if he chose to renounce the right he possessed of claiming an endless one; or lastly, to reward good and faithful service by cancelling the consequences of an earlier wrong. But emancipation has two very different effects: it not only relieves the serf from personal burthens and disabilities, but it restores or introduces a citizen to political and public rights. In a state of society where landed possession and the exercise of such rights are inseparable, a grave difficulty arises, viz. how can provision be made for the newly emancipated, and now free man? If the community will consent, and possess the means, to create a new free Hide for his occupation, of course the matter can be managed; but this consent renders the emancipation in reality the act of the state, not of the manumittor. Or the lord on restoring freedom to his serf may endow him with a portion of his own land, sufficient for easy or even wealthy subsistence; but this will not make him fully a free man, give him his full position in the πολιτευμα or polity, and place him on a level with the free inhabitants of the Mark.
Till periods very late in comparison with that which is assumed in the course of this argument, a similar principle prevails in our legislation upon this subject. Glanville says, “It is also to be observed that a man may enfranchise his serf in respect of the persons of himself or his heirs, but not in respect of others. For if any one, having once been a serf, and afterwards having attained to freedom in this manner, should be produced in court against a third party to support a cause, or for the purpose of making any law of the land, he may justly be removed therefrom, if his birth in villenage should be objected to and proved against him in the court, even though the serf so enfranchised should have come to be promoted unto a knight’s degree[[409]].”
Later still, liberty seems considered as a privilege the value of which might be diminished by its extension; and Fleta gives as a reason why the lord is bound to pursue his fugitive serf, “lest by negligence of the lords, serfs should prevail to assert their own freedom[[410]].”
On consideration therefore of all the facts, we must conclude that where full and complete manumission was intended, the transaction could only be completed in the presence and with the co-operation of the community, whereby all claims besides those of the manumitting lord would be formally estopped for the future. And this would be nearly equivalent to the admission (rare indeed) of a metic or other stranger to the full rights of citizenship at Athens, which could hardly have effect without a ψήφισμα or deliberate vote of the whole people[[411]]. Accordingly even in the laws of William the Conqueror and Henry the First we find evidence that the completest publicity was given to formal manumissions[[412]]; and it is not unreasonable to believe that this refers back to a time when such publicity may have consisted in the presentation of the serf before the assembled folcmót, and their expressed or implied assent to the solemn act.
Practically however, it is probable that the dissolution of servitude did not absolutely confer all the privileges of freedom. The numerous acts of manumission directed by the wills of great landowners are totally inconsistent with the notion of any interference on the part of the assembled people, as necessary to their validity: the instances, it is true, are mostly of modern date, but still we hear of manumissions by wholesale at very early periods, where nothing but the lord’s own will can possibly be thought of[[413]]. It seems therefore probable that a certain amount of dependence was reserved; that the freedman became relieved from the harsher provisions of his former condition, but remained in general under the protection and on the land of his former lord, perhaps receiving wages for services still rendered. In the eighth century Wihtraed of Kent enacted that even in the case of solemn manumission at the altar, the inheritance, the wergyld and the mund of the family should remain to the lord, whether the new freedman continued to reside within the Mark or not[[414]]. The mode of provision for the emancipated serf must, in a majority of cases, have led to this result. The lord endowed him out of his own land, either with a full possession, secured by charter, or a mere temporary, conditional loan, lǽn: the man therefore remained upon the lord’s estate, and in his borh or surety, though no longer liable to servile disabilities[[415]].
The full ceremonies used in the solemn act of emancipation by the Anglosaxons are not known to us; but there is reason to suppose that they resembled those of other Teutonic nations. Generally these may be divided into civil and ecclesiastical; the former receiving their sanction from the authority of the people or the prince, the latter from the church and its peculiar influences. “He who would emancipate his serf shall deliver him to the sheriff, by the right hand, in full county, shall proclaim him free from all yoke of servitude by manumission, shall show him open roads and doors, and shall deliver unto him the arms of a free man, namely the lance and sword: thenceforth the man is free[[416]].” Such is the law of William the Conqueror, and it is repeated with little variation by Henry the First[[417]], except that there is no limitation to the sheriff and the county. But this was also one form of manumission among the Langobards. The person who was to be made Fulfreal was delivered over successively into the hands of four different persons: the last of these brought him before witnesses to a spot where four roads met, and his choice was given him of these roads. He was then free, and ámund, that is removed from under the protection of his former master[[418]]. But it appears that the master, even though he gave the free roads, might reserve the mund of his freedman, by which he retained the right of inheriting from him, if he died childless[[419]]; and this recalls to us the provision already cited from the Kentish law[[420]]. The history of Ramsey informs us that Æðelstán, the son of Manni, adopted this form in a very extensive emancipation of his serfs[[421]], and we may therefore suppose it to have been a mode usual among the Saxons. Among the Franks, the fullest and completest act of emancipation was that which took place before the king, or in a popular court; the freedman, from the ceremonies adopted on the occasion, was called Denarialis, or Denariatus, “qui denarium ante regem iactavit.” He became capable of a wergyld, of contracting marriage with a free woman, and in general obtained all the rights of a free citizen. But he still remained in some degree under the mund of the king, who received his wergyld, and had certain rights over his inheritance[[422]]. I do not know whether this has any connexion with a law of Henry the First, which provides that in any case of manumission, the serf shall give thirty pence to the lord, as a witness, namely the price of his skin, for a testimony that he is thenceforth himself its master[[423]]. There was a form of manumission among the Franks by charter[[424]], which however did not confer all the privileges of the denarialis. The holder of such a charter was thence called Chartularius: I will not assert that such a system prevailed here, although it is possible that some of the many charters of emancipation, printed in the Codex Diplomaticus, may be of this nature. Their general character however is that of a record of bargain and sale between different parties: it may be indeed presumed that emancipation would follow, but there is no positive statement that it did. The following class of cases perhaps approaches nearest to such a charta ingenuitatis: “By this book of the Gospels it appeareth that Ælfwig the Red hath bought himself out, from Abbat Ælfsige and all the convent, with one pound. Whereof is witness all the brotherhood at Bath. Christ blind him who turneth away this record[[425]]!” But this is only a memorandum in a copy of the Gospels, no charter of manumission; and I presume that the sheriff would have required some much more definite and legal act, before he looked upon Ælfwig the Red as a freeman. Probably he was duly made free at the altar of the abbey church or at the door[[426]]. Of this subsequent process we have a good example in the book of St. Petroc.
“This book beareth witness that Ælfsige bought a woman called Ongyneðel, and her son Gyðiccæl, of Ðurcil for half a pound, at the church-door in Bodmin: and he gave to Ælfsige the portreeve and Maccos the hundred-man, fourpence as toll. Then came Ælfsige who bought these persons, and took them, and freed them, ever sacless, on Petroc’s altar, in the witness of these good men; that is, Isaac the priest[[427]],” etc.
Of all forms of emancipation I imagine this to have been the most frequent, partly because of its convenience, partly because the motives for emancipation were generally of a religious cast, and the sanctions of religion were solemn and awful. Almost all the records which we possess on this subject are taken from the margins of Gospels or other books belonging to religious houses, and the few references in the laws imply emancipation at the altar. Among the Franks this form, in which the freedman was called Tabularius, conveyed only imperfect freedom: the utmost it could do was to confer the privileges of a Roman provincial, to which class the clergy were reckoned: but the tabularius even so was not fully free; he still remained in the mund of the church. Wihtræd’s law, so often cited, shows clearly that this was not the case in England; nor could it be, seeing that the clergy among us were national, and the Frankish system of personal rights did not prevail. I am therefore disposed to think that gradually emancipation at the altar was taken to convey all the privileges of manumission, and that it was the mode generally, though not exclusively, in use. On this point, the want of documents prevents our attaining certainty. The method was probably this: the man was formally offered up before the high altar, and there declared free in the presence of the officiating clergy and the congregation. A memorandum was then made in some religious book belonging to the church, and the names of the witnesses were recorded. Whether a separate certificate was prepared does not appear.
The full extent of the rights obtained by the freedman, especially in respect of inheritance, is not to be gathered from any existing Anglosaxon document. It is probable that these were limited, as among the Langobards and Franks: his offspring however were free, and his marriage with a free woman, equal: his other rights, duties and privileges, in short his general condition, were in all probability determined by certain arrangements between himself and his lord previous to the act of manumission. In such a case neither party would find much difficulty in settling the terms of a bargain.