Judicial Procedure
If a man did something wrong, his case would be heard by the King and his freemen. His punishment would be given to him by the community.
There were occasional meetings of "hundreds", which were probably a hundred hides of land or a hundred extended families, to settle wide-spread disputes.
Chapter 2
The Times: 600-900
A community was usually an extended family. It's members lived in villages in which a stone church was the most prominent building. They lived in one-room huts with walls and roofs made of wood, mud, and straw. Hangings covered the cracks in the walls to keep the wind out. Smoke from a fire in the middle of the room filtered out of cracks in the roof. Grain was ground at home by rotating by hand one stone disk on another stone disk. Some villages had a mill powered by the flow of water or by horses.
Farmland surrounded the villages and was farmed by the community as a whole under the direction of a lord. There was silver, copper, iron, tin, gold, and various types of stones from remote lead mines and quarries in the nation. Silver pennies replaced the smaller scaetts. Freemen paid "scot and lot" according to their means.
Everyone in the village went to church on Sunday and brought gifts such as grain to the priest. Later, contributions in the form of money became customary, and then expected. They were called "tithes" and were spent for church repair, the clergy, and poor and needy laborers. The parish of the priest was coextensive with the holding of one landlord and was his chaplain. The priest and other men who helped him, lived in the church building. Some churches had lead roofs and iron hinges, latches, and locks on their doors. The land underneath had been given to the church by former Kings and persons who wanted the church to say prayers to help their souls go from purgatory to heaven and who also selected the first priest. The priest conducted Christianized Easter ceremonies in the spring and Christmas (Christ's mass) ceremonies in winter in place of the pagan Yuletide festivities. Incense took the place of pagan burnt offerings, holy water of haunted wells and streams, and Christian incantations of sorcerer's spells.
The church baptized babies and officiated at marriage ceremonies. It also said prayers for the dying, gave them funerals, and buried them. There were burial service fees, candle dues, and plough alms. A piece of stone with the dead person's name marked his grave. It was thought that putting the name on the grave would assist identification of that person for being taken to heaven. The church heard the last wish or will of the person dying concerning who he wanted to have his property.