[447]. There is some difficulty in deciding whether the head of the tithing was included in the ten, or beside it. I have proceeded upon the supposition that he was not included, consequently that there were really eleven men in the tithing. The leading authority (Jud. Civ. Lond. Æðelst. v. § 3. Thorpe, i. 230) is totally and irreconcilably contradictory on the point.
[448]. The Decani appear to be the same as the Decimales homines of Æðelred’s law. Thorpe, i. 338.
[449]. Leg. Ælf. § 27.
[450]. Such voluntary associations were not unusual. Several deeds of agreement of such clubs are given in an Appendix to this Chapter. There seems to have been similar clubs among the Hungarians: they were called “Kalender-Bruderschaften,” from usually meeting on the first day of every month. Fessler, Gesch. der Ungern, i. 725.
[451]. The later guilds of trades, dedicated to particular Saints, are quite a different thing; in form these bear a most striking resemblance to the φυλαί.
[452]. Leg. Eádg. Hund. § 5. Thorpe, i. 260.
[453]. Leg. Ed. Conf. xx.
[454]. I do not for a moment imagine that this was an entirely new organization. The document which contains the record seems to be the text of a solemn undertaking, almost a treaty of alliance, between the City and king Æðelstan, for the better maintenance of the public peace. It is perhaps worth attention that the Tyn-manna-tǽl was a denomination peculiar to another large city—York: but the same authority from which we learn this fact, identifies the institution with that in common use throughout the land. Leg. Ed. Conf. xx.
[455]. Æðelst. v. 3, § 1. Thorpe, i. 230.
[456]. The MS. reads xii, twelve, but it seems almost certain that we ought to understand eleven, that is one man for each tithing and one for the hundred or hynden.