Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales'Seebohm, Frederic
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Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales'
Seebohm, Frederic
Anglo-Saxons; Law, Anglo-Saxon; Law, Medieval; Tribes -- Great Britain
The leysing was still unfree in the sense that he could not leave his
master. The following is from the Gulathing law (67).
Nú ferr leysingi ór fylki firi útan ráð dróttins síns, oc aflar
sér þar fiár æða kaupa, þá scal scapdróttenn fara efter með
vátta. Ef hann vill aftr fara, þá er vel. En ef hann vill eigi
aptr fara, þá leiði hann vitni á hönd hánom at hann er leysingi
hanns, oc fœri hann aptr hvárt sem hann vill lausan æða bundinn,
oc setia hann í sess hinn sama, þar sem hann var fyrr.
Now a leysing leaves the district without the advice [or will] of
his master, and earns property or concludes bargains; then his
master shall go after him with witnesses. If he is willing to
come back, that is well. If he is not willing, he [the master]
shall call witnesses that he is his leysing, and bring him back,
fettered or unfettered, as he likes, and set him in the same seat
that he had formerly.
But, on the other side, the master might not sell even a thrall ‘out of
the land’ (F. XI. 20); so that probably he could not turn his leysing
adrift at his pleasure.
The leysing remained under _thyrmsl_ towards his master, or obligations
involving personal loyalty and duty, and upon any breach of these, he
could be put back into thraldom.
En ef hann gerer einnhvern lut þeirra, þa scal hann fara aftr í
sess hinn sama er hann var fyrr, oc leysasc þeðan verðaurum. Fé
sínu hever hann oc firigort.
Should he make himself guilty of any of these things, he shall go
back to the seat in which he sat formerly, and buy himself free
out of it with money to his value. And his property is forfeited.
(G. 66.)
[Sidenote: The leysing must now keep his children.]
The reason assigned in a clause above quoted for the desire to ‘make
freedom ale’ was that the leysing might ‘have control of his bargains and
his marriage.’ He gained, therefore, both as regards property and also in
family rights.
In Gulathing law (63) is described what happened on his marriage. If he
marries a kin-born (_ætt-borin_) woman, and they afterwards separate, all
the children go with her. He, not being kin-born, has no kindred. She
being kin-born, her kindred have rights over her and obligations as to
her children.
En ef hon verðr fyrr dauð, þá scolo börn öll hverva til faður
síns aftr, oc eta fé hans meðan þat er til; en þá er þat er allt
etet, þá scolu börn öll aftr hverva í hit betra kyn, en hann
undir scapdrótten sínn.
If she die first, all the children shall go back to their father,
and eat his property so long as it lasts, and after it is all
eaten up, all the children shall go back to the better kin, _and
he back to his master_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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