2δ6
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book r.
geréfan or bailiffs, or suffering the hundreds to be
still governed and administered in the-way common
to all such divisions, by the elective officer1.
It stands to reason that the system above de-
scribed applied only to the really free. It was the
form of the original compact between the inde-
pendent members of an independent community.
But as by the side of the free landholders, there
dwelt also unfree men of various ranks, so also
there existed modifications of the original compact,
suited to their condition. Those who in a more or
less stringent degree were dependent, could not be
members of the tithing, the hundred or the folcmot.
They stood to right among themselves, in their
lord’s court, not in the people’s, and in the latter
they could not appear for themselves. The institu-
tion therefore which provided that the lord might
maintain a Comitatus or following, provided also
that its members should all be in his mund (pro-
tection) and borh (surety), and that he should make
answer for them in the courts from which they
were themselves excluded 2.
ɪ Eftdweard the Oonfessor granted the hundred of Hornmere in
Berkshire to Ordric, abbat of Abingdon ; “ so that no sheriff or moot-
reeve may hold therein any plea or moot, without the Abbafs own
command and permission.” Cod. Dip. No. 840. He also granted
the hundred of Godley in Surrey to Wulfwold, Abbat of Chertsey,
and forbade the sheriff to meddle in the same. Cod. Dip. No. 840,
849.
3 “ And let every lord have his household in his own borh. Then if
any of them should be accused, and escape, let the lord pay the man’s wer
to the king. And if any accuse the lord that the escape was by his coun-
sel, let him clear himself with five thanes, being himself the sixth. If
the purgation fail him, let him forfeit his wer to the king ; and let the
man be an outlaw.” TEiSelr. i. § 1. Thorpe, i. 282. “ And let every
CH. IX.]
THE TITHING AND HUNDRED.
267
It is difficult to decide whether the lords or no-
bles were at first comprised within the popular cor-
porations : it appears most probable that they were
not ; that they were sufficient to their own defence,
and, even from the earliest historical periods, in
possession of that immunity which released their
lands from the jurisdiction of the popular tribunals.
In respect therefore to the gylds, they may be sup-
posed to have held an independent, though not
necessarily hostile, position, regulated'indeed by the
public law : and if they stood to right with their
men, in the folcmot, it was the collective power
and dignity of the state with which they had to
dea⅛ and not the smaller associations, founded
upon necessities of which they were not conscious.
Their dependents were under their guarantee and
surety, as the members of every man’s household,
his wife, children and serfs, were under his: for
' them he was responsible to the community at large,
but he owed no suit or service to others, and if he
persisted in upholding wrong, I fear the only cor-
rective was to be found in the inalienable ins belli,
which resumes its power instantly upon the viola-
lord have his household in his own borh, and if any one accuse his
man of any thing, let the lord answer for him within the hundred,
wherein he is cited, as just law is. And if he escape,” etc. Cuut, ιi.
§ 31. Thorpe, i. 394, 39G. “ Archiepiscopi, episcopi, comités, barones
et milites suos, et proprios servientes suos, scilicet dapiferos, pincernas,
camerarios, cocos, pistores, sub suo fιiδborgo habebant, et ipsi suos
armigeros et alios servientes suos sub suo fri<5borgo ; quod si ipsi foris-
facerent, et clamor Vicinorum insurgeret de eis, ipsi Iiaberent eos ad
rectum m curia sua, si Iiaberent sacham et socam, toi et theam, et in-
fangenethef.” Edw. Conf. xxi. Thorpe, i. 451.
VOL. I. S