[45] He was thrown into the moat to cool his ardor, pelted with stones, derided as a proud and envious wretch.—Michelet.
[46] The maids redeeme their virginities with a certain piece of money, and by that Terme their lands are held to this day. Heywoode.—History of Women, London, 1624; Lib. 7,339.
[47] Margaret was canonized in 1251, and made the Patron Saint of Scotland in 1673. Several of the Scotch feudalry, despite royal protestation, kept up in the famous practice until a late date. One of the earls of Crawford, a truculent and lustful anarch, popularly known and dreaded as “Earl Brant,” in the sixteenth century, was probably among the last who openly claimed leg-right, the literal translation of droit de jambage.—Sketches of Feudalism.
[48] The feeling is common in the north that a laird, or chieftain, getting a vassal’s or clansmen’s wife or daughter with child, is doing her a great honor. Burke.—Letters from an English Gentleman, about 1730.
[49] Pres de cet etang, et devant sa maison.
[50] In days to come people will be slow to believe that the law among Christian nations went beyond anything decreed concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound man’s heart. The Lord Spiritual had this right no less than the Lord Temporal. The parson being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was willing to sell his rights to the husband. The courts of Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally. Michelet.—La Sorciere, p. 62.
[51] Among the rights asserted by the Protestant clergy in the middle ages, and which caused much dispute, was exemption from lay jurisdiction even in cases of felony.
From the throne downward every secular office was dependent upon the church. Froude.—Times of Erasmus and Luther.
[52] Among these de coucher avec leur femmes, d’enlever les premices de leurs filles.
[53] H. S. Maine.