[Sidenote: Ine’s Dooms apart from Alfred’s.] There is no reason, I think, to suspect that the text of the Dooms of Ine was altered by Alfred. The words already quoted in which he says that in his Dooms he collected together what he thought ‘rightest’ of those things which he met with of the days of Ine and Offa and Ethelbert without adding much of his own are quite consistent with his preservation of King Ine’s laws as a whole, though in some points differing from his own.[248] King Ine came to the throne in A.D. 688, and he states in his preamble that he issued his ‘Dooms’ with the counsel of Cenred his father and of the Bishops of Winchester and London (who had already had twelve or thirteen years’ experience in their sees) and also with the counsel of all his _ealdormen_ and his Witan:-- ꝥ te ryht æw ⁊ ryhte cyne-domas þurh ure folc gefæstnode ⁊ getrymede wæron, ꝥ te nænig ealdormonna ne us under-geþeodedra æfter þam wære awendende þas ure domas. So that just law and just kingly dooms might be settled and established throughout our folk; so that none of the _ealdormen_ nor of our subjects should hereafter pervert these our dooms. [Sidenote: The ealdorman a shire-man in judicial position.] We mark, then, at once that at this period the most prominent public official was the _ealdorman_. From clause 8 and clause 9 we learn that private revenge for a wrong was forbidden before justice had been demanded from a ‘“scir-man” or other judge.’ And that the ealdorman was a shire-man we learn from another clause (clause 36). Seþe þeof gefehð oþþe him mon gefongenne agifð ⁊ he hine þonne alæte oþþe þa þiefðe gedierne forgielde þone þeof [be] his were. (36) Let him who takes a thief or to whom one taken is given, and then lets him go, or conceals the theft, pay for the thief according to his wer. Gif he ealdormon sie þolie his scire buton him kyning arian wille. If he be an _ealdorman_ let him forfeit his ‘shire’ unless the King be merciful to him. Here, as in Alfred’s Laws, the ealdorman is an official with judicial jurisdiction. And we learn more about his social status as compared with that of other classes from s. 45. [Sidenote: Burg-bryce of various classes.] Burg-bryce mon sceal betan c. xx scill. kyniges ⁊ biscepes þær his rice bið. Ealdormonnes lxxx scill. Kyniges þegnes lx scill. Gesiðcundes monnes land-hæbbendes xxxv scill. ⁊ be þon ansacan. (45) Bot shall be made for the _King’s_ burg-bryce, and a bishop’s where his jurisdiction is, with cxx shillings; for an _ealdorman’s_ with lxxx shillings; for a _King’s thane’s_ with lx shillings; for that of a _gesithcund_-man having land with xxxv shillings: and _according to this let them make legal denial_.