288
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
Lbook i.
to remain in ignorance of the means adopted to re-
concile conflicting interests measured by a standard
so imperfect.
But the wergyld or price of the whole man was
not all that the law professed to regulate. When
once the principle had been admitted, that this
might be fixed at a certain sum, it was an easy
corollary not only that the sum in question should
limit the amount of responsibility to the State1 but
that a tariff for all injuries should be settled. In
the laws of Æ^elberht and Ælfred we find very
detailed assessments of the damage which could be
done to a man by injuries, either of his person, his
property, or his honour: many of these are amu-
sing and strange enough, and Iiighly indicative
of the rude state of society for which they were
adapted. But it seems unnecessary to pursue the
details they deal with : they may serve to turn a
period about Teutonic barbarism, or to point a
moral about human fallibility; but the circum-
stances under which they ʌvere rational and con-
venient arrangements have passed away, and they
are now of little interest as historical records, and
of none with a view to future utility.
’ Capital punishments are necessarily rare in early periods. Tacitus
limits those of the Germans to cases of high-treason or effeminacy, two
crimes which strike at the root of all’society, ∏ence the highest pu-
nishment is payment of the wergyld : a capital thief is wergjld-J>eof.
If he cannot or will not pay, he is outlawed, that is excluded from the
benefits of the mutual guarantee among free men : he may bd slain as
a common enemy, iure belli, or reduced to slavery, which is the more
usual result.
289
CHAPTER XI.
FOLCLAND. BO'CLAND. LÆ'NLAND.
It was a wise insight into the accidents of increa-
sing population which limited the amount of the
original e¾>el, or allodial estate. By leaving, as it
were, a large fund to be drawn upon, as occasion
might serve, the principle, that every freeman must
be settled on laɪld, was maintained, without con-
demning society to a stationary condition, as to
numbers. The land thus left, of which the usu-
fruct, under certain conditions, was enjoyed by the
freemen, was called Folcland, terra publica, ager
publiais. It was distinguished from the d¾el by
not becoming absolute property in the hands of
individuals, consequently by not being hereditary.
The dominium utile might be granted ; the domi-
nium directum remained in the state, which was a
perpetual feoffee lfor certain trusts and uses. And
hence folcland was subject to rents of divers kinds,
and reversion. The folcland could also be applied
to reward great public services, in which case
estates of alod, or d,δel, were carved out of it, and
presented to him whom the community desired to
honour1. The service which Wulf and Eofer did
ɪ Theτ∈∕ifj,os, or cut-off portion, en tail, which Senicemight earn
among the Greeks, is of the same character. According to tradition,
VOL. I. U