220
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
owners are totally inconsistent with the notion of
any interference on the part of the assembled peo-
ple, as necessary to their validity : the instances, it
is. true, are mostly of modern date, but still we
hear of manumissions by wholesale at very early
periods, where nothing but the lord’s own will can
possibly be thought ofɪ, It seems therefore pro-
bable that a certain amount of dependence was re-
served ; that the freedman became relieved from
the harsher provisions of his former condition, but
remained in general under the protection and on
the land of his former lord, perhaps receiving wages
for services still rendered. In the eighth century
Wihtraed of Kent enacted that even in the case of
solemn manumission at the altar, the inheritance,
the wergyld and the mund of the family should re-
main to the lord, whether the new freedman conti-
nued to reside within the Mark or not2. The mode
of provision for the emancipated serf must, in a
majority of cases, have led to this result. The lord
endowed him out of his own land, either with a
full possession, secured by charter, or a mere tem-
porary, conditional loan, læn : the man therefore
remained upon the lord’s estate, and in his borh
or surety, though no longer liable to servile disabi-
lities3.
j For example Wilfrid’s, at Selsey ; see above, p. 211.
2 Leg. Wihtr. § 8.
, Wulfwaru in her will directs her legatees to feed twenty freolsɪnen
or freedmen. Cod. Dipl. No. 694. ■ Ketel commands that all the men
whom he has freed shall have all that is under their hand,—probably
all they had received as stock, or had been able to gain by their in-
dustry. Cod., Dipl. No. 1340.
CH. vnɪ.]
THE UNFREE. THE SERF.
221
The full ceremonies used in the solemn act of
emancipation by the Anglosaxons are not known to
us ; but there is reason to suppose that they resem-
bled those of other Teutonic nations. Generally
these may be divided into civil and ecclesiastical ;
the former receiving their sanction from the autho-
rity of the people or the prince, the latter from
the church and its peculiar influences. “ He who
would emancipate his serf shall deliver him to the
sheriff, by the right hand, in full county, shall pro-
claim him free from all yoke of servitude by ma-
numission, shall show him open roads and doors,
and shall deliver unto him the arms of a free man,
namely the lance and sword : thenceforth the man
is free1.” Such is the law of William the Con-
queror, and it is repeated with little variation by
Henry the First2, except that there is no limitation
to the sheriff and the county. But this was also
one form of manumission among the Langobards.
The person who was to be made Fulfredl was de-
livered over successively into the hands of four
different persons : the last of these brought him
before witnesses to a spot where four roads met,
and his choice was given him of these roads. He
was then free, and ɑmund, that is removed from
under the protection of his former master3. But it
1 Leg. Will. Conq. iii. § 16.
a “Qui servum suum libérât, in aecclesia, vel mercato, vel Comitatu,
vel hundreto, coram testibus et palam faciat, et libéras ei vias et portas
Conscribat apertas, et Ianceam et gladium, vel quae Iiberorum arma
sunt, in manibus ei ponat.” Leg. Hen. I. Ixxviii. § 1. Hence the manu-
mitted serf is called freo 1 færewyr®, free and fareworthy, that is,
having the right to go whither he chooses.
3 Leg. Rotharis, Langob. Reg. cap. 226. '