Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community', (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales'Seebohm, Frederic
History
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
And there is good reason to believe that this ore was the ore in general
use in Scandinavian commerce. We have seen that the Scandinavian ore,
like the Merovingian ounce, when reckoned in wheat-grains was the Roman
ounce of 576 wheat-grains, but that in actual weight it had sunk below
the Roman standard. The ‘ortug’ or stater had apparently in actual
weight fallen back to the weight of the stater of the ancient Eastern
or Merovingian standard, viz. 8·18 grammes, so that the ore or ounce of
three ortugs of this weight would weigh 24·54 grammes. And this was
almost exactly one fifteenth of the Anglo-Saxon pound.[220]
We may therefore with some confidence regard the ore legalised by Cnut
for commercial use as practically identical in weight of silver with the
ore of three ortugs in use in the Baltic and generally in Scandinavian
trade.
[Sidenote: Cnut divides his ore into 20 light pence.]
Moreover, when we turn to the actual coinage of Cnut we find that by
a sweeping change he reduced the weight of the silver penny from one
twentieth of the Anglo-Saxon ounce to apparently one twentieth of this
ore, intending, it would seem, to make his ore pass for payments as an
ore of 20 pence instead of 16.[221]
When these facts are taken together, we can hardly, I think, be wrong
in assigning the ‘De Institutis Lundonie’ to the time of the foundation
of the Danish kingdom by Cnut and in considering its final clause as
recording the legalisation of the Danish monetary system with its marks
and ores for use in England and for purposes of international trade.
The fact that the ‘ore of sixteen’ was in use not only in the ‘Laws of
the Bretts and Scots’ but also in the Domesday survey, _e.g._ in the
district between the Mersey and the Ribble, is a lasting proof of its use
wherever Scandinavian conquest and commerce extended, possibly before and
certainly long after it was legalised for English use by Cnut.
II. FRAGMENT ‘OF “GRITH” AND OF “MUND.”’
Having gained from the ‘De Institutis Lundonie’ some sense of the
greatness of the change to England consequent upon the accession of Cnut
and also of the importance of England to Cnut’s Scandinavian kingdom, we
may now turn to the consideration of certain documents which seem to be
attempts made during this period of change to realise and record what had
been Anglo-Saxon custom.
[Sidenote: Mund-bryce of the king and of the Church five pounds.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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