or mother's sister, and thereafter relatives up to the fifth `joint', whoever are the nearest in relationship, shall succeed by the law of inheritance. While the male line subsists, and the inheritance descends from that side, a woman shall not succeed. "The first born son shall have the father's ancestral fee' the latter shall give any purchases or subsequent acquisitions of his to whomever he pleases." If a person has bocland which his kinsmen have left him, he shall not dispose of it outside his kindred. "If a wife survives her husband she shall have in permanent ownership her dowry and her maritagium which had been settled on her by written documents or in the presence of witnesses and her morning-gift and a third part of all their jointly acquired property in addition to her clothing and her bed." "If a woman dies without children, her blood relatives shall divide up her share with her husband." A man may fight against as person whom he finds with his wedded wife, after the second or third prohibition, behind closed doors or under the one covering, or with his daughter whom he begot on his wife, or with his sister who was legitimately born, or with his mother who was lawfully wedded to his father. There is pecuniary compensation if a married woman commits fornication and she is of the rank of ceorl or belongs to the 600s. class or the 1200s. class, and physical mutilation has been prescribed for those persisting in the offence. "Women who commit fornication and destroy their embryos, and those who are accessories with them, so that they abort the foetus from the womb, are by an ancient ordinance excommunicated from the church until death." A milder provision has now been introduced: they shall do penance for ten years. "If anyone kills or while sleeping crushes another person's child who has been entrusted to him for rearing or instruction, he shall pay compensation for him just as if he had killed an adult person." The county meetings shall be attended by the bishops, earls, sheriffs, deputies, hundredmen, aldermen, stewards, reeves, barons, vavassors [those who hold of a baron], village reeves, and the other lords of lands who shall with diligence see to it that failure to punish evildoers or the viciousness of officials or the corruption of judges shall not destroy those suffering under their accustomed afflictions. Every cause shall be determined in the hundred court or county court or the hallmoot of those who have soke or in the courts of feudal lords or in the boundary courts of feudal equals or as it pertains to established places for court proceedings. "In the case of soke of pleas, some of these profits belong peculiarly and exclusively to the royal treasury, some are shared by it with others, some belong to the sheriffs and royal officials in their farm, and some belong to the lords who have soke and sake." "The king's judges shall be the barons of the county and those who