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
*If anyone refuses by force the payment of ecclesiastical dues, he
shall pay the full fine or he shall clear himself: he shall select 11
men and himself make a twelfth. If he wounds anyone, he shall make
amends and pay the full fine to the lord and redeem his hands from the
bishop or lose them. If he kills a man, he shall be outlawed and
pursued with hostility. If he so acts as to bring about his own death
by setting himself against the law, no compensation shall be paid for
him.
If anyone injures one of the clergy, he shall make amends according to
the rank of the person injured, either by the payment of his wergeld or
a fine or by the forfeiture of all his property.
*If anyone commits adultery, he shall make amends according to the
nature of the offense. It is wicked adultery for a pious man to commit
fornication with an unmarried woman, and much worse with the wife of
another man or with any woman who has taken religious vows.
*If anyone commits incest, he shall make amends according to the degree
of relationship between them, either by the payment of wergeld or of a
fine, or by the forfeiture of all his possessions.
*If anyone does violence to a widow or maiden, he shall pay his wergeld.
*If a woman commits adultery, her husband shall have all she possesses
and she shall lose her nose and her ears.
If a married man commits adultery with his own slave, he shall lose her
and make amends to God and to men.
*If anyone has a lawful wife and also a concubine, no priest shall
perform for him any of the offices which must be performed for a
Christian man, until he desists and makes amends as the bishop shall
direct.
Foreigners, if they will not regularize their unions, shall be driven
from the land with their possessions, and shall depart in sin.
*Any murderer shall be given up to the kinsmen of the slain man. The
bishop shall pronounce judgment.
*If anyone plots against the king or his own lord, he shall forfeit his
life and all that he possesses, unless he proves himself innocent by
the triple ordeal.
*If anyone violates the protection or a king, archbishop or bishop, he
shall pay 5, 3, or 2 pounds respectively as compensation.
*Anyone who fights at the king's court shall lose his life, unless
pardoned by the king.
*If a man unjustly disarms another, he shall compensate him by the
payment of his healsfang. If he binds him, he shall compensate by the
payment of half his wergeld.
If anyone is guilty of a capital deed of violence while serving in the
army, he shall lose his life or his wergeld.
*If a man makes forcible entry into another man's house, he shall pay 5
pounds to the king. If he is slain in such a case, no compensation
shall be paid for his death.
*Anyone guilty of robbery shall restore the stolen goods and pay the
injured man as much again and forfeit his wergeld to the king.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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