252
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
the frilδborgas not having the bond of blood be-
tween them, which might have induced an improper
partiality in favour of one of their members ; and
as they stood under responsibility for every act of
a gyldsman, being interested in preventing an un-
due interference on the part of his family. We thus
see that the gyldsmen were not only bound to pre-
sent their fellows before the court of the freemen
when specially summoned thereto, but that they
found their own advantage in exercising a kind of
police-surveillance over them all : if a crime were
committed, the gyld were to hold the criminal to his
answer ; to clear him, if they could conscientiously
do so, by making oath in his favour ; to aid in pay-
ing his fine if found guilty ; and if by flying from
justice he admitted his crime, they were to purge
themselves on oath from all guilty knowledge of the
act, and all participation in his flight ; failing which,
they were themselves to suffer mulct in proportion
to his offence. On the other hand they were to
receive at least a portion of the compensation for
his death, or of such other sums as passed from
hand to hand during the progress of an Anglosaxon
suit. Being his neighbours, the visnetum, vicinage
or venue, they were his natural compurgators or
witnesses, and consequently, being examined on
oath, in some sense Ihejurati or jurors upon whose
verdict his weal or woe depended. And thus the
importance of character, so frequently appealed to
even in our modem jurisprudence, was carried to
the highest extent.
We may reasonably conclude that the close in-
CH. IX.]
THE TITHING AND HUNDRED.
2δ3
tercourse thus created, was improved to private
and social purposes, and that these gylds, like the
much larger associations of the same name in after
times, knew how to combine pleasure with business.
The citizens of London hint at a monthly sympo-
sium or treat, with butt-filling, when the tithing-
men met together to settle the affairs of their re-
spective hundreds,—a trait not yet extinct in the
civic, or indeed the national, character. There can
also be little doubt that the gylds even formed
small courts of arbitration, as well as police, for the
settlement of such trifling disputes between mem-
bers of the same gyld, as were not worthy of being
reserved for the interference of a superior tribunal1 ;
and it is also probable that the members consi-
dered themselves bound to aid in the festivities or
do honour to the obsequies of any individual gyld-
brother: the London gyldsmen were to distribute
alms, and cause religious services to be performed
at the decease of a fellow ; and it is obvious that
this sharing in a religious obligation, the benefits of
which were to extend even into another life, must
ɪ The law of Eadweard the Confessor shows this clearly : “ Cum
autem viderunt quod jaliqui stulti Iihenter forisfaciebant erga vicinos
sιιos, Sapientiores Coeperunt consilium inter se, quomodo eos reprime-
rent, et sic imposuerunt iusticiarios super quosque decem fritSborgos,
quos decanos possumus dicere, Anglice autem tyen<5e-heved vocati
sunt, hoc est caput decem. Isti autem inter villas, inter vicinos tracta-
bant causas, et secundum quod forisfacturae erant, emendationes et
Ordinationes faciehant, videlicet de pascuis, de pratis, de messibus, de
Oertationibus inter vicinos, et de multis huiusmodi quae frequenter
insurgunt.” § xxviii. How clearly has the jurisdiction of the Tithing
here superseded that of the ancient Mark !