The burhs are mentioned in the early laws of England, but by this time the signification of the word had become extended, so that it was frequently applied not only to a moated mound but to the town that had sprung up around it. By the laws of Æthelstan, every burh was to be repaired within fourteen days after the Rogation days, and money was allowed to be coined at royal burhs. By the laws of Edmund the king’s burh was a place of refuge, and under those of Æthelred, he who fought in a king’s burh was liable to death. Burh-bryce was the violation of a castle or dwelling. Burh-bote, a payment for keeping burhs or fortresses in a state of defence, was a branch of the well-known “trinoda necessitas.” Originally, the English burh was a fortified house, the “Domus defensabilis” of Domesday, the “Aula,” the German “Saal,” of the owner of the surrounding estate or manor, which the tenants were bound to defend; of which the designation may sometimes be Norman, but the thing designated is undoubtedly of far earlier origin. The term burh naturally became extended to the cluster of surrounding huts, and a hedge with a ditch was their primary enclosure, the repair of which is provided for in very early Saxon laws. A good stout hedge, even of quickset, is not to be despised, and the cactus and bamboo hedges of India will turn a band of soldiers. The word “Haia” is not infrequent in Domesday, and it there means an enclosure into which wild beasts were driven, “Haia in qua capiebantur feratæ.” It was also used for the enclosure of a park, as the Haye Park, at Knaresborough, and the Hawe Park attached to Skipton Castle. King Ida’s hedge at Bamborough was for the defence of annexed pasture lands, for the castle scarce needed any such addition to its surpassing strength. The word was also extensively used in Normandy, both for a defence and for an enclosure. One of the old Herefordshire castles bears the name of Hay. [Illustration: CASTLE HILL MEXBOROUGH] The Edictum Pistense of Charles the Bald, in 864 (cap. i.), expressly orders all “Castella et firmitates et haias,” made without his license, to be destroyed, “disfactas,” because they were injurious to the district. “Vicini et circummanentes exinde multas deprædationes et impedimenta sustinent” (“Rerum Gallicarum Scriptores,” vii., 677). Hedges therefore were not always mere enclosures, but sometimes a military defence.