258
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book r.
tion of that tacit understanding among men, that
the well-being of society depends upon a regulated
mutual forbearance. Those were not ages in which
acts of self-defence or righteous retribution could
be misnamed revolutions. But all these remarks
are intended to apply only to a state of society in
which the nobles were few and independent, the
people strong and united ; where the people were
in truth the aristocracy1, and the nobles only their
chiefs. The holder of an immunity (having sacn
and jsocn) in later times, under a consolidated
royalty representing the national will, and in a
state from which the element of the people had
nearly vanished, through the almost total vanish-
ing of small independent freeholds, was necessarily
placed in a very different position.
It now remains only to bestow a few words upon
the manner in which the original obligations of the
family bond were gradually brought to bear upon
the artificial organization.
Upon a careful consideration of the latter it ap-
pears that its principal object was gained when
either offences were prevented, or the offender pre-
sented to justice : the consequences of crime, in all
but a few excepted cases, fell not upon the gegyldan
1 Tlie freeman is a member of an aristocracy in respect of all the
unfree, whether these be temporarily so, as his children and guests, or
permanently so, as his serfs. To be in the πoλlτeυμa, which others are
not, to have the franchise which others have not, to have the freedom
of a city which others have not, all these are forms of aristocracy,—
the aristocracy of Greece, Rome and England. The Peers in England
are not themselves exclusively an aristocracy : they are the born leaders
of one, which consists now of ten-pound householders, freemen in
towns, and county tenants under the Chandos clause.
ch, ix∖] THE TITHING AND HUNDRED. 259
(if they could clear themselves of participation) but
upon the mægas or relatives1.
The laws of ÆiSelberht, Wihtræd and Hlo1Shere
know nothing of gegyldan : with them the mægas
are still wholly responsible, and even their inter-
vention is noticed in three cases only : ÆSelberht
provided that in the event of a manslayer flying
the country, the family should pay half the wergyld
of the slain2. Again he enacts, that if a married
woman die without bearing children, the property
she brought her husband, and that which he settled
upon her after consummation, shall return to her
paternal relatives3. According to the legislation of
-HloShere, if a man died, leaving a wife and child,
the mother was to have the custody of the child till
his tenth year, but the paternal kinsmen were to
administer his property, under satisfactory pledge
for due discharge of their duty4. The regulations
ɪ “ And if any one charge a person in holy orders with feud (fæhp'e)
and say that he was a perpetrator or adviser of homicide, let him clear
himself with his Kinsmen, who must bear the feud with him, or make
compensation for it. And if he hate no kin, let him clear Iiimselfwith
his associates or fast for the ordeal by bread, and so fare as God may
ordain.” ÆtSelr. ix. § 23, 24. Thorpe, i. 344. Cnut, i. § 5. Thorpe,
i. 362. The associates or geferan here are probably his fellows in or-
ders. But a monk being released from all family ɪelations could not be
implicated in the responsibilities of the mægburh (ibid. § 25); “ for he
forsakes his law of kin (mægðlage) when he submits to monastic law.”
Cnut, i. § 5. Thorpe, i. 362.
2 “ Gif bana of lande gewftetS, Sa mægas healfne Ieod forgylden.”
Ægelb. § 23. Thoipe, i. 8.
3 “ Gif he<> bearn ne gebyre,5, frederingmægas feoh âgen and mor-
gengyfe.’’ Æfielb. § 81, Thorpe1 i. 24.
1 “ Gif ceorl âcwyle be Iibbendum wife and bearne, riht is 'δ,∙et hit,
'Scot beam, nιedder folgige ; and him man an his fæderingmægum wil-
ɛuinne berigean geselle, his feoh to healdenne oδδtet he tynwintre sie.”
HlotSh. § 6. Thorpe, i. 30.