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
Qui scienter fregerit eam [pacem regis] … lege Anglorum suum
were, i. precium suum, et manbote de occisis erga dominos quorum
homines interfecti erant. Manbote in Danelaga, de vilano et de
socheman, xii oras; de liberis hominibus iii marcas. Manbote in
lege Anglorum, regi et archiepiscopo, iii marc̄ de hominibus
suis; episcopo comitatus, comiti comitatus, et dapifero regis, xx
soƚ; baronibus ceteris, x soliđ. Emendacionem faciat parentibus,
aut guerram paciatur, unde Angli proverbium habebant: Biege spere
of side oðer bere, quod est dicere, lanceam eme de latere aut fer
eam.
He who knowingly breaks the king’s peace … by the law of the
English pays his were, _i.e._ _pretium suum_, and _manbot_ of
persons killed to the lords whose men have been killed. Manbote
in Danelaga of villanus and socheman xii ores, of _liberi
homines_ iii marks.[212] Manbot in English law to the king and
archbishop iii marks for their men; to the bishop and earl of
a county and _dapifer_ of the king xx_s._: other barons x_s._
Let him make amends to the _parentes_ or suffer feud. Hence the
English have a proverb, ‘Buy off the spear or bear it.’
This chapter relates chiefly to the breach of the king’s peace on the
king’s highways &c., but it clearly confirms the meaning of the _manbot_
as the payment to the lord for his man and as quite distinct from the
wergeld to the _parentes_ of the slain.
[Sidenote: Manbot of socheman and villanus alike in the Danelaga.]
It may seem strange at first sight that according to this clause the
manbot in the Danelaga of the villanus and the socheman should be alike,
viz. 12 ores of silver, and further that the villanus and socheman should
not be included as _liberi homines_, the manbot of the latter being
double their manbot, viz. three marks or 24 ores.
* * * * *
The explanation of the equal manbot of villani and sochemen may partly
be found in the tendency after the Conquest to class together all
subordinate tenants rendering manual or agricultural services to the
landlord as villani, and to ignore the differences in origin between the
various classes of tenants of this kind. Still if at this point of our
inquiry the relative positions of the sochmanni of the Danish districts
and the villani of ordinary English manors were the question under
discussion, it would be fair in explanation of the equality in manbot to
point out how very nearly the services of the two classes seem to have
corresponded so far as their value to the lord was concerned.[213]
The loss to the lord of the twelve-hyndeman was probably reckoned as of
greater money value than that of the villanus or socheman, because of
the higher grade or character of his military and judicial services as
compared with the agricultural services of the villanus and socheman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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