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
Canon 6. If a freeman shall kill the slave of another without
fault (of the slave), he shall pay two slaves to the master.
But if it were the fault of the slave, another slave shall be
restored in his place.
C. 12. Si quis homicidium fecerit et fugam petierit, parentes
ipsius habeant spacium intra dies XV., ut aut partem restituant
et securi insedeant, aut ipsi de patria vadant; post hoc si
ipse interemptor venire voluerit, reddat medium quod restat et
vivat securus. Quodsi interim occisus fuerit, mancipium et quæ
acceperint faciant restaurari.
Canon 12. If any one shall have done homicide and shall have
sought flight, his parentes shall have the space of fifteen days,
in order either to make their share of restitution and remain
safe, or themselves quit the country. After this, if the slayer
himself wants to return, he shall pay the remaining half and
be safe. But if in the meanwhile he shall be slain they shall
cause the slave [? slaves] and whatever they had received to be
restored.
[Sidenote: Payments of six _ancillæ_ or _servi_ for homicide. The slayer
to pay half and the parentes half.]
Here, apparently, is a fairly complete and consistent set of canons
relating to homicide. All the payments are to be made in _ancillæ_ and
_servi_. And the payment for intentional homicide is apparently a fixed
payment of three ancillæ and three servi, _i.e._ six slaves in all.
Canons 1 and 2 are consistent and conclusive on this point.
Now, looking at these canons alone, two facts point very strongly to
an Irish rather than a Welsh connection, or perhaps we ought to say,
to a Goidelic rather than Cymric connection. In the Brehon Laws, as we
have seen, the payments are made in _cumhals_ or ancillæ, and the fixed
wergeld or _coirp-dire_ is strictly speaking _six_ ancillæ, and one added
for a special object, making seven cumhals in all. In the Cymric Codes,
on the other hand, the galanas is paid in cows and never in ancillæ, and
the amount of the galanas is graduated according to rank, that of the
lowest and youngest tribesman being 60 cows, nearly three times as great
as the six ancillæ and servi of these canons.
[Sidenote: The Irish coirp-dire apparently common to South Wales and the
Breton churches from fifth to seventh century.]
The force of these suggestions of Irish connection is greatly increased
by the fact that nowhere else in the collections of Canons and
Penitentials except in these so-called ‘Canones Wallici’ and the ‘Canones
Hibernenses,’ and closely allied sources, do we find the payments
expressed in ancillæ. And it must be remembered that the intimacy between
Breton and Cornish saints was mainly with South Wales, and through South
Wales with Ireland, and further that South Wales, until conquered by
Maelguin, was Goidelic rather than Cymric.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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