BOOK CHAP. V. The Were and the Mund. AS the WERE and the MUND are expressions which occur frequently in the Saxon laws, it may be useful to explain what they mean. Every man had the protection of a were and the privilege of a mund. The were was the legal valuation of an individual, varying according to his situation in life. If he was killed, it was the sum his murderer had to pay for the crime-if he committed crimes himself, it was the penalty which, in many cases, he had to discharge. The were was therefore the penalty by which his safety was guarded, and his crimes prevented or punished. If he violated certain laws, it was his legal mulct; if he were himself attacked, it was the penalty inflicted on others. Hence it became the measure and mark of a man's personal rank and consequence, because its amount was exactly regulated by his condition in life. The king's were geld or were payment was thirty thousand thrymsas, or one hundred and twenty pounds; an etheling's was fifteen thousand; a bishop and calderman's, eight thousand; a holde's and heh-gerefa's, four thousand; a thegn, two thousand, or twelve hundred shillings; a ccorl's, two hundred and sixty-six thrymsas, or two hundred shillings, unless he had five hides of land at the king's expeditions, and then his were became that of a thegn. The were of a twelfhynd-man was one hundred and twenty shillings, of a syxhynd-uan was eighty shillings, and of a twyhynd-man thirty shillings.' A Welshman's were who had some land, and paid gafol to the king, was two hundred and twenty shillings; if he had Wilkins, p. 71, 72. 25. ་ only half a hide of land, it was eighty shillings; and if he had CHA P. no land, but was free, it was seventy shillings.* The amount of a person's were determined even the degree of his legal credibility. The oath of a twelf hynd-man was equal to the oaths of six ceorls; and if revenge was taken for the murder of a twelfhynd-man, it might be wrecked on six ceorls.' To be deprived of this were was the punishment of some crimes, and then the individual lost his greatest social protection. The MUNDBYRD was a right of protection or patronage which individuals possessed for their own benefit and that of others. The violation of it towards themselves, or those whom it sheltered, was punished with a severity, varying according to the rank of the patron. The king's mundbyrd was guarded by a penalty of fifty shillings. That of a widow of an earl's condition was equally protected, while the mund of the widow of the second sort was valued at twenty shillings, of the third sort at twelve shillings, and of the fourth sort at six shillings. If a widow was taken away against her consent, the compensation was to be twice her mund. The penalty of violating a ceorl's mund was six shillings.* This privilege of the mund seems to be the principle of the doctrine, that every man's house is his castle. The mund was the guardian of a man's household peace, as the were was, of his personal safety. If any one drew a weapon where men were drinking, and the floor was stained with blood, besides forfeiting to the king fifty shillings, he had to pay a compensation to the master of the house for the violation of his mundbyrd.' V. BOOK CHAP. VI. Their Borh, or Sureties. THE system of giving suretics, or bail, to answer an accusation, seems to have been coeval with the Saxon nation, and has continued to our times. In one of our earliest laws it was provided, that the accused should be bound over by his sureties to answer the crime of which he was accused, and to do what the judges should appoint. If he neglected to find bail, he was to forfeit twelve shil-' lings. These bail were not to be taken indiscriminately; for the laws of Ina enact, that the bail might be refused if the magistrate knew that he acted right in the refusal.' Felonies are not bailable now; in the Anglo-Saxon times it was otherwise. If a man was accused of theft, he was to find borh, or sureties; if he could not do this, his goods were taken as security. If he had none, he was imprisoned till judgment.* When a homicide pledged himself to the payment of the were, he was to find bork for it. The borh was to consist of twelve sureties; eight from the paternal line, and four from the maternal.* If a man was accused of witchcraft, he was to find borh to abstain from it.' If a man was found guilty of theft by the ordeal, he was to be killed, unless his relations would save him by paying his were and ceap-gyld, and give both for his good behaviour afterwards. But the most curious part of the Saxon borh was not the sureties which they who were accused or condemned were to find to appear to the charge or to perform the judgment pronounced; but it was the system, that every individual should be under bail for his good behaviour. It has been mentioned that Alfred is stated to have divided England into counties, hundreds, and tithings-that every person was directed to belong to some tithing or hundred, and that every hundred and tenth were pledged to the preservation of the public peace, and answerable for the conduct of their inhabitants.' Of this statement, it may be only doubted whether he divided England into counties or shires. These divisions certainly existed before Alfred. The shire is mentioned in the laws of Ina;' and we know that the counties of Kent, Essex, Sussex, existed as little kingdoms from the first invasion of the Saxons. Of the other counties, we also find many expressly mentioned in the Saxon history anterior to Alfred's reign. It may however be true, that he may have separated and named some particular shires, and this partial operation may haye occasioned the whole of the general fact to be applied to him. 1 The system of placing all the people under borh originated from Alfred, according to the historians; but we first meet with it clearly expressed in the laws in the time of Edgar, By his laws it is thus directed:" Every man shall find and "have borh, and the borh shall produce him to every legal charge, and shall keep him; and if he have done any wrong "and escapes, his borh shall bear what he ought to have "borne. But if it be theft," and the borh can bring him "forward within twelve months, then what the borh paid "shall be returned to him." 66 This important and burthensome institution is thus again. repeated by the same prince: "This is then what I will; See vol. i. of this work, p. 327. • Wilk. 9 Ibid. 78. CHAP. "that every man be under borh, both in burghs and out of "them; and where this has not been done, let it be settled "in every borough and in every hundred." ". 10 It is thus again repeated in the laws of Ethelred: "Every "freeman shall have true borh, that the borh may hold him "to every right, if he should be accused."". The same laws direct, that if the accused should fly, and decline the ordeal, the borh was to pay to the accuser the ceap-gyld, and to the lord his were." And as to that part of the population which was in the servile state, their lords were to be the sureties for their conduct."3 The man who was accused and had no borh, might be killed, and buried with the infamous. 4 Nothing seems more repugnant to the decorous feelings of manly independence, than this slavish bondage and anticipated criminality. It degraded every man to the character of an intended culprit: as one whose propensities to crime were so flagrant, that he could not be trusted for his good conduct, to his religion, his reason, his habits, or his honour.. Every one was presumed to be so full of innate vice, that nothing could save society from universal iniquity, but that every one should find legal sureties that he would not commit it. Such a law was a libel on human nature, and must have created more depravity than it prevented: This indeed seems to have been experienced; for no period more abounded with. political or social vices and calamities than the reigns which followed the establishment of this law, if we date it from Edgar. 10. Wilk. 80. "Ib. 102. Ibid., 13. Ibid. 14 Ib. 103. |