224
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
“ This book beareth witness that Ælfsige bought
a woman called Ongyne1Sel, and her son GySiccael,
of Durcil for half a pound, at the church-door in
Bodmin : and he gave to Ælfsige the portreeve and
Maccos the hundred-man, fourpence as toll. Then
came Ælfsige who bought these persons, and took
them, and freed them, ever sacless, on Petroc’s altar,
in the witness of these good men ; that is, Isaac the
priest ɪ," etc.
Of all forms of emancipation I imagine this to
have been the most frequent, partly because of its
convenience, partly because the motives for eman-
cipation were generally of a religious cast, and the
sanctions of religion were solemn and awful. Al-
most all the records which we possess oh this sub-
ject are taken from the margins of Gospels or other
books belonging to religious houses, and the few
references in the laws imply emancipation at the
altar. Among the Franks this form, in which the
freedman was called Tabularius, conveyed only
imperfect freedom : the utmost it could do was to
confer the privileges of a Roman provincial, to
which class the clergy were reckoned : but the tabu-
Iarius even so was not fully free ; he still remained
in the mund of the church. Wihtræd’s law, so often
cited, shows clearly that this was not the case in
England ; nor could it be, seeing that the clergy
among us were national, and the Frankish system
of personal rights did not prevail. I am therefore
disposed to think that gradually emancipation at
the altar was taken to convey all the privileges of
ɪ Cod. Dipl. 981. § 28.
CH. VI∏∙] THE UNFEEE. THE SERF. 225
manumission, and that it was the mode generally,
though not exclusively, in use. On this point, the
want of documents prevents our attaining certainty.
The method was probably this : the man was for-
mally offered up before the high altar, and there de-
clared free in the presence of the officiating clergy
and the congregation. A memorandum was then
made in some religious book belonging to the
church, and the names of the witnesses were re-
corded. Whether a separate certificate was pre-
pared does not appear.
The full extent of the rights obtained by the
freedman, especially in respect of inheritance, is
not to be gathered from any existing Anglosaxon
document. It is probable that these were limited,
as among the Langobards and Franks : his offspring
however were free, and his marriage with a free
woman, equal : his other rights, duties and privi-
leges, in short his general condition, were in all
probability determined by certain arrangements
between himself and his lord previous to the act of
manumission. In such a case neither party would
find much difficulty in settling the terms of a bar-
gain.
NOTE.
The following pedigrees illustrate the care with which the relations of
the gebɪir, and other dependent cultivators on an estate were recorded,
t ɪs probable, nay even certain, that such records were preserved in all
lordships : they were the original court-rolls, by copy of which the un-
ree tenants, perhaps also the poor freemen, held, who were thus the
ftncient copyholders. The amount of the holdings was undoubtedly
VOL. I. 0