See hereafter the several chapters Ealdorman, Geréfa and Witena gemót. Footnote 51: The principal cases will be found in the following passages of the Laws: Eádw. § 1. Æðelst. i. § 20, 22, 26; iii. § 7; iv. §1, 7; v. § 11. Eádm. iii. § 2, 6, 7. Eádg. i. § 4; ii. § 7, etc. ----- The maintenance of the public peace is the first duty of the king, and he is accordingly empowered to levy fines for all illegal breaches of it, by offences against life, property or honour[52]: in very grave cases of continued guilt, he is even entrusted with the right of banishing and outlawing offenders, whose wealth and family connexions seem to place them beyond the reach of ordinary jurisdictions[53]. Where the course of private war is to be settled by the legal compensations, it is the king’s peace which is established between the contending parties, the relatives and advocates of the slayer and the slain[54]. And in accordance with these principles, we find the kings’s peace peculiarly proclaimed upon the great roads which are the highways of commerce and means of internal communication, and the navigable streams by which cities and towns are supplied with the necessary food for their inhabitants[55]. And hence also he was allowed to proclaim his peace over all the land at certain times and seasons; as, for eight days at his coronation, and the same space of time at Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide. He might also, either by his hand or writ, give the privileges of his peace to estates which would otherwise not have possessed it, and thus place them upon the same footing of protection as his own private residences[56]. The great divisions of the country, that is the shires, could only be determined by the central power: it is therefore provided that these shall be in the especial right of the king: “Divisiones scirarum regis proprie cum iudicio quatuor chiminorum regalium sunt[57].” And to the end of maintaining peace, it appears to me that the king must also have been the authority to whom, at least in theory, it was left to settle the boundaries even of private estate; which on the conversion of folcland into bócland, he did, generally by his officers, but sometimes in person[58]. Footnote 52: Hloðh. § 9, 11, 12, 13, 14. Ælf. § 37. Æðelst. i. § 1; iii. § 4; v. § 5. Footnote 53: Æðelst. iii. § 3; iv. § 1. Footnote 54: Eád. Gúð. § 13. Eádm. ii. § 1, 6, 7. Footnote 55: Eád. Conf. § 12. Cross roads and small streams are not in the king’s peace, but that of the county. Footnote 56: