(c) The more ancient documents of Anglo-Saxon law show us the individual not merely as the subject and citizen of a certain commonwealth, but also as a member of some group, all the fellows of which are closely allied in claims and responsibilities. The most elementary of these groups is the maegth, the association of agnatic and cognatic relations. Personal protection and revenge, oaths, marriage, wardship, succession, supervision over settlement, and good behaviour, are regulated by the law of kinship. A man's actions are considered not as exertions of his individual will, but as acts of the kindred, and all the fellows of the maegth are held responsible for them. What began as a natural alliance was used later as a means of enforcing responsibility and keeping lawless individuals in order. When the association of kinsmen failed, the voluntary associations—guilds—appeared as substitutes. The gild brothers associated in mutual defence and support, and they had to share in the payment of fines. The township and the hundred came also in for certain forms of collective responsibility, because they presented groups of people associated in their economic and legal interests.
(d) In course of time the natural associations get loosened and intermixed, and this calls forth the elaborate police legislation of the later Anglo-Saxon kings. Regulations are issued about the sale of cattle in the presence of witnesses. Enactments about the pursuit of thieves, and the calling in of warrantors to justify sales of chattels, are other expressions of the difficulties attending peaceful intercourse. Personal surety appears as a complement of and substitute for collective responsibility. The hlaford and his hiredmen are an institution not only of private patronage, but also of police supervision for the sake of laying hands on malefactors and suspected persons. The landrica assumes the same part in a territorial district. Ultimately the laws of the 10th and 11th centuries show the beginnings of the frankpledge associations, which came to act so important a part in the local police and administration of the feudal age.
The points mentioned are not many, but, apart from their intrinsic importance in any system of law, they are, as it were, made prominent by the documents themselves, as they are constantly referred to in the latter.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Editions: Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (1903, 1906) is indispensable, and leaves nothing to be desired as to the constitution of the texts. The translations and notes are, of course, to be considered in the light of an instructive, but not final, commentary. R. Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1858) is still valuable on account of its handiness and the fulness of its glossary. B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (1840) is not very trustworthy. Domesday Book, i. ii. (Rec. Comm.); Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, i.-vi. ed. J. M. Kemble (1839-1848); Cartularium Saxonicum (up to 940), ed. W. de Gray Birch (1885-1893); J. Earle, Land Charters (Oxford, 1888); Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicanum; Facsimiles of Ancient Charters, edited by the Ordnance Survey and by the British Museum; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils of Great Britain, i.-iii. (Oxford, 1869-1878).
Modern works.—Konrad Maurer, Über Angelsachsische Rechtsverhaltnisse, Kritische Ueberschau (Munich, 1853 ff.), still the best account of the history of Anglo-Saxon law; Essays on Anglo-Saxon Law, by H. Adams, H. C. Lodge, J. L. Laughlin and E. Young (1876); J. M. Kemble, Saxons in England; F. Palgrave, History of the English Commonwealth; Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, i.; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, i.; H. Brunner, Zur Rechtsgeschichte der romisch-germanischen Urkunde (1880); Sir F. Pollock, The King's Peace (Oxford Lectures); F. Seebohm; The English Village Community; Ibid. Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law; Marquardsen, Haft und Burgschaft im Angelsachsischen Recht; Jastrow, "Über die Strafrechtliche Stellung der Sklaven," Gierke's Untersuchungen, i.; Steenstrup, Normannerne, iv.; F. W. Maitland, Domesday and Beyond (Cambridge, 1897); H. M. Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions (1905); P. Vinogradoff, "Folcland" in the English Historical Review, 1893; "Romanistische Einflusse im Angelsächsischen Recht: Das Buchland" in the Mélanges Fitting, 1907; "The Transfer of Land in Old English Law" in the Harvard Law Review, 1907.
(P. Vi.)
[1] The Judicia civitatis Lundoniae are a gild statute confirmed by King Æthelstan.
ANGLO-SAXONS. The term "Anglo-Saxon" is commonly applied to that period of English history, language and literature which preceded the Norman Conquest. It goes back to the time of King Alfred, who seems to have frequently used the title rex Anglorum Saxonum or rex Angul-Saxonum. The origin of this title is not quite clear. It is generally believed to have arisen from the final union of the various kingdoms under Alfred in 886. Bede (Hist. Eccl. i. 15) states that the people of the more northern kingdoms (East Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria, &c.) belonged to the Angli, while those of Essex, Sussex and Wessex were sprung from the Saxons (q.v.), and those of Kent and southern Hampshire from the Jutes (q.v.). Other early writers, however, do not observe these distinctions, and neither in language nor in custom do we find evidence of any appreciable differences between the two former groups, though in custom Kent presents most remarkable contrasts with the other kingdoms. Still more curious is the fact that West Saxon writers regularly speak of their own nation as a part of the Angelcyn and of their language as Englisc, while the West Saxon royal family claimed to be of the same stock as that of Bernicia. On the other hand, it is by no means impossible that the distinction drawn by Bede was based solely on the names Essex (East Seaxan), East Anglia, &c. We need not doubt that the Angli and the Saxons were different nations originally; but from the evidence at our disposal it seems likely that they had practically coalesced in very early times, perhaps even before the invasion. At all events the term Angli Saxones seems to have first come into use on the continent, where we find it, nearly a century before Alfred's time, in the writings of Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon). There can be little doubt, however, that there it was used to distinguish the Teutonic inhabitants of Britain from the Old Saxons of the continent.
See W. H. Stevenson, Asser's Life of King Alfred (Oxford, 1904, pp. 148 ff.); H. Munro Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge, 1907); also BRITAIN, Anglo-Saxon.