[378]. Co. Litt. § 187, 188.
[379]. Take an instance, though with a wider application, from Shakspeare, King John, act i. sc. 2.
[380]. Lib. i. cap. 3. § 2.
[381]. That is, if the serfs of two different lords, then the child to follow the mother.
[382]. In the event of there being no marriage. The case of a marriage is very different, and provided for in the next sentence.
[383]. Mr. Allen in his valuable notes upon the law of Henry the First (published by Thorpe in his Anglosaxon Laws, i. 609-631) has some remarks upon the whole subject, as considered by our Norman jurists. His conclusions coincide generally with mine, and he says (p. 628), “The Mirror [Sachsenspiegel] makes the marriage of the parents an essential condition to the liberty of the offspring,” etc.
[384]. Tac. Germ. xxv.
[385]. “Si faemina, furore zeli accensa, flagellis verberaverit ancillam suam, ita ut infra diem tertium animam cruciatu effundat, et quod incertum sit, voluntate an casu occident; si voluntate, vii annos; si casu, per quinquennii tempora, ac legitima poenitentia, a communione placuit abstinere.” Poen. Theod. xxi. § 13. “Si quis servum proprium, sine conscientia iudicis, occiderit, excommunicatione vel poenitentia biennii reatum sanguinis emundabit.” Ibid. § 12. Even as late as the seventeenth century in France, it appears that it was usual to flog the valets, pages and maids, in noble houses. Tallemant des Réaux mentions a riot which arose in Paris from a woman’s being whipped to death by her mistress, in August 1651. See his Historiettes, viii. 80; x. 255, etc.
[386]. The compensation for a flogging was called hídgeld.
[387]. Leg. Æðelst. iii. § 6. Thorpe, i. 219.