Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one half of the
men were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and
harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent
farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of common
land, more large private estates headed by a lord, and a more
stratified society in which the king and important families more
powerful and the peasants more curtailed. The witan became mere
witnesses. Many free coerls of the older days became bonded. The
village community tended to become a large private estate headed by a
lord. But the lord does not have the power to encroach upon the rights
of common that exist within the community.
In 886, a treaty between Alfred and the Vikings divided the
country along the war front and made the wergeld of every free farmer,
whether English or Viking, 200s. Men of higher rank were given a
wergeld of 4 1/2 marks of pure gold. A mark was probably a Viking
denomination and a mark of gold was equal to nine marks of silver in
later times and probably in this time. The word "earl" replaced the
word "eorldormen" and the word "thegn" replaced the word "aetheling"
after the Danish settlement. The ironed pleats of Viking clothing
indicated a high status of the wearer. The Vikings brought combs and
the practice of regular hair-combing to England.
King Alfred gave land with jurisdictional powers within its
boundaries such as the following: "This is the bequest which King
Alfred make unequivocally to Shaftesbury, to the praise of God and St.
Mary and all the saints of God, for the benefit of my soul, namely a
hundred hides as they stand with their produce and their men, and my
daughter AEthelgifu to the convent along with the inheritance, since
she took the veil on account of bad health; and the jurisdiction to the
convent, which I myself possessed, namely obstruction and attacks on a
man's house and breach of protection. And the estates which I have
granted to the foundation are 40 hides at Donhead and Compton, 20 hides
at Handley and Gussage 10 hides at Tarrant, 15 hides at Iwerve and 15
hides at Fontmell.
The witnesses of this are Edward my son and Archbishop
AEthelred and Bishop Ealhferth and Bishop AEthelhead and Earl Wulfhere
and Earl Eadwulf and Earl Cuthred and Abbot Tunberht and Milred my
thegn and AEthelwulf and Osric and Brihtulf and Cyma. If anyone alters
this, he shall have the curse of God and St. Mary and all the saints of
God forever to all eternity. Amen."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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