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Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons In order to impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man should sell or buy any thing above twenty pence value, except in open market;[********] and every bargain of sale must be executed before witnesses.[*********]

     [1: Lindenbrogius, passim.]

     [2: Tacit, de Mor. Germ.]

     [3: LL. lf. sect. 12. Wilkins, p. 29. It is
     probable that by wilful murder Alfred means a treacherous
     murder, committed by one who has no declared feud with
     another.]

     [4: LL. lf. sect. 4. Wilkins, p. 35.]

     [5: LL. lf. sect. 40. See also LL. Ethelb. sect.
     34, etc.]

     [6: LL Ethelb. sect. 32.]

     [7: Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]

     [8: LL. thelst. sect. 12.]

     [9: LL. thelst. sect. 10, 12. LL.Edg. apud
     Wilkins, p. 80. LL Ethelredi, sect 4, apud Wilkins, p. 103.
     Hloth. et Eadm. sect 16. LL. Canute. sect. 22.]

Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the country, and the law determined that a tribe of banditti, consisting of between seven and thirty-five persons, was to be called a “turma,” or troop; any greater company was denominated an army.[*] The punishments for this crime were various, but none of them capital.[**] If any man could track his stolen cattle into another’s ground, the latter was obliged to show the tracks out of it, or pay their value.[***]

Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital but might be redeemed by a sum of money.[****] The legislators, knowing it impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine on breaches of the peace committed in the king’s court, or before an alderman or bishop. An ale-house, too, seems to have been considered as a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more severely punished than else where.[*****]

    [* LL. In, sect. 12.]

    [* LL. In, sect. 37.]

    [* LL. thelst. sect. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]

    [* LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110. LL. lf. sect. 4.
     Wilkins, p35.]

    [* LL. Hloth. et Eadm. sect. 12, 13. LL. Ethelr. apud
     Wilkins, P 117.]

If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural result of the situation of those people. Whatever we may imagine concerning the usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and barbarous state, there is much more falsehood, and even perjury, among them, than among civilized nations: virtue, which is nothing but a more enlarged and more cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree, nor is founded on steady principles of honor, except where a good education becomes general; and where men are taught the pernicious consequences of vice, treachery, and immorality. Even superstition, though more prevalent among ignorant nations, is but a poor supply for the defects in knowledge and education; our European ancestors, who employed every moment the expedient of swearing on extraordinary crosses and relics, were less honorable in all engagements than their posterity, who from experience have omitted those ineffectual securities. This general proneness to assumed perjury was much increased by the usual want of discernment in judges, who could not discuss an intricate evidence, and were obliged to number, not weigh, the testimony of the witnesses,[*] Hence the ridiculous practice of obliging men to bring compurgators, who, as they did not pretend to know any thing of the fact, expressed upon oath, that they believed the person spoke true; and these compurgators were in some cases multiplied to the number of three hundred.[**] The practice also of single combat was employed by most nations on the continent as a remedy against false evidence;[***] and though it was frequently dropped, from the opposition of the clergy, it was continually revived, from experience of the falsehood attending the testimony of witnesses.[****] It became at last a species of jurisprudence: the cases were determined by law, in which the party might challenge his adversary or the witnesses, or the judge himself;[*****] and though these customs were absurd, they were rather an improvement on the methods of trial which had formerly been practised among those barbarous nations, and which still prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons.

     [* Prf. Nicol. ad Wilkins, p. 11.]

     [** LL. Burgund. cap. 45. LL. Lomb. lib. ii. tit.
     55, cap. 34.]

     [*** LL. Longob. lib. ii. tit. 55, cap. 23, apud
     Lindenbrog. p. 661]

     [**** See Desfontaines and Beaumanoir.]
     for weighing the credibility of witnesses. A man whose life
     was estimated at a hundred and twenty shillings,
     counterbalanced six ceorles, each of whose lives was only
     valued at twenty shillings, and his oath was esteemed
     equivalent to that of all the six. See Wilkins, p. 72.]

When any controversy about a fact became too intricate for those ignorant judges to unravel, they had recourse to what they called the judgment of God, that is, to fortune. Their methods of consulting this oracle were various. One of them was the decision by the cross: it was practised in this manner: When a person was accused of any crime, he first cleared himself by oath, and he was attended by eleven compurgators. He next took two pieces of wood, one of which was marked with the sign of the cross, and wrapping both up in wool, he placed them on the altar, or on some celebrated relic. After solemn prayers for the success of the experiment, a priest, or in his stead some unexperienced youth, took up one of the pieces of wood, and if he happened upon that which was marked with the figure of the cross, the person was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty. [*] This practice, as it arose from superstition, was abolished by it in France.

     [* LL. Prison, tit. 14, apud Lindenbrog. p. 496.
     trial, not because it was uncertain, but lest that sacred
     figure says he, of the cross should be prostituted in common
     disputes and controversies.]

The ordeal was another established method of trial among Saxons. It was practised either by boiling water or red-hot iron. The former was appropriated to the common people; the latter to the nobility. The water or iron was consecrated by many prayers, masses, fastings, and exorcisms,[*] after which, the person accused either took up a stone sunk in the water[**] to a certain depth, or carried the iron to a certain distance; and his hand being wrapped up, and the covering sealed for three days, if there appeared, on examining it, no marks of burning, he was pronounced innocent; if otherwise, guilty.[***] The trial by cold water was different: the person was thrown into consecrated water; if he swam, he was guilty, if he sunk, innocent.[****] It is difficult for us to conceive how any innocent person could ever escape by the one trial, or any criminal be convicted by the other. But there was another usage admirably calculated for allowing every criminal to escape, who had confidence enough to try it. A consecrated cake, called a corsned, was produced, which if the person could swallow and digest, he was pronounced innocent.[******]

The feudal law, if it had place at all among the Anglo-Saxons, which is doubtful, was not certainly extended over all the landed property, and was not attended with those consequences of homage, reliefs,[*******] wardship, marriage, and other burdens, which were inseparable from it in the kingdoms of the continent. As the Saxons expelled, or almost entirely destroyed, the ancient Britons, they planted themselves in this island on the same footing with their ancestors in Germany, and found no occasion for the feudal institutions,[********] which were calculated to maintain a kind of standing army, always in readiness to suppress any insurrection among the conquered people.