The Law
Alfred issued a set of laws to cover the whole country.
The importance of telling the truth and keeping one's word are expressed by this law: "1. At the first we teach that it is most needful that every man warily keep his oath and his wed. If any one be constrained to either of these wrongfully, either to treason against his lord, or to any unlawful aid; then it is juster to belie than to fulfil. But if he pledge himself to that which is lawful to fulfil, and in that belie himself, let him submissively deliver up his weapon and his goods to the keeping of his friends, and be in prison forty days in a King's tun: let him there suffer whatever the bishop may prescribe to him: …".
The Ten Commandments were written down as this law:
"The Lord spake these words to Moses, and thus said: I am the Lord thy God. I led thee out of the land of the Egyptians, and of their bondage.
1. Love thou not other strange gods above me.
2. Utter thou not my name idly, for thou shalt not be guiltless towards me if thou utter my name idly.
3. Remember that thou hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves six days, and on the seventh rest. For in six days, Christ wrought the heavens and the earth, the seas, and all creatures that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: and therefore the Lord hallowed it.
4. Honour thy father and thy mother whom the Lord hath given thee, that thou mayst be the longer living on earth.
5. Slay thou not.