Again, the difficulty of guarding against theft, especially in respect to cattle, the universal vice of a semi-civilized people,—led to more than one attempt to prohibit all buying and selling except in towns; and this of itself seems to imply that they were numerously distributed over the face of the country. But this provision, however beneficial to the lords of such towns, was too contrary to the general convenience, and seems to have been soon relinquished as impracticable. The enactments on the subject appear to have been abrogated almost as soon as made[827]: but the machinery by which it was proposed to carry their provisions into effect are of considerable interest. In each burh, according to its size, a certain number of the townspeople were to be elected, who might act as witnesses in every case of bargain and sale,—whom both parties on occasion would be bound to call to warranty, and whose decision or _veredictum_ in the premises would be final. It was intended that in every larger burh (“summus portus”) there should be thirty-three such elective officers, and in every hundred twelve or more, by whose witness every bargain was to be sanctioned, whether in a burh or a wapentake. They were to be bound by oath to the faithful discharge of their duty. The law of Eádgár says: “Let every one of them, on his first election as a witness, take an oath that, neither for profit, nor fear, nor favour, will he ever deny that which he did witness, nor affirm aught but what he did see and hear. And let there be two or three such sworn men as witnesses to every bargain[828].” ----- Footnote 827: Leg. Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 12, 13; iii. § 2; v. § 10. Thorpe, i. 158, 206, 218, 240. Footnote 828: Leg. Eádgár. Supp. § 3, 4, 5. Thorpe, i. 274. ----- The words of this law seem to imply that the appointment was to be a permanent one; and it is only natural to suppose that these “geǽðedan men,” _jurati_, or jurors, would become by degrees a settled urban magistracy. We see in them the germ of a municipal institution, a sworn corporation, assessors in some degree of the geréfa or the later mayor[829]. They were evidently the “boni et legales homines,” the “testes credibiles,” “ða gódan men,” “dohtigan men,” and so forth, of various documents, the “Scabini,” “Schoppen” or “Echevins,” so familiar to us in the history of mediæval towns, which had any pretensions to freedom. They necessarily constituted a magistracy, and gradually became the centre round which the rights and privileges of the municipality clustered. ----- Footnote 829: “Hoc anno [A.D. 1200] fuerunt xxv electi de discretioribus civitatis, et iurati pro consulendo civitatem una cum Maiore.” Lib. de Antiq. Legib. _in anno_. -----