Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775

s: befor

ction when walking. These skins were sewn together with bone needles and threads made from animal sinews. They carried small items by hooking them onto their belts. They used bone and ston

ople lived in rectangular huts with four wood posts supporting a roof. The walls were made of saplings, and a mixture of mud and straw. Cooking was in a clay oven inside or over an open fire on the outside. Water was carried in animal skins or leather p

of their huts, which were sometimes in places kept secret from her family. The first month of marriage was called the honeymoon because the couple was given mead, a dri

their bodies and fastened it with a metal brooch inlayed with gold, gems, and shell, which were glued on with glue that was obtained from melting animal hooves. People drank from hollowed-out animal horns, which they could carry from belts. They could tie things with rawhide strips or rope braids they made. Kings drank from animal horns decorated with gold or from cups of amber, shale, or pure gold. Men and women wore pendants and necklaces of color

ils to the animal. The men threw stones and spears with flint points at the animals. They used wood clubs to beat them, at the same time using wood shields to protect their bodies. They watched the phases of th

clans or a blood feud. After the battle, the clan would bring back its dead and wounded. A priest o

fenders found guilty of transgressions. Sacrifices were usually made in t

gathered by the women. They drank water from springs. In the spring, food was plentiful. There were e

t and cow provided milk, butter, and cheese. The chickens provided eggs. The hoe, spade, and grinding stone were used. Thread was spun with a hand-held spindle which one hand held while the other hand alternately formed the thread from a mass and then wound it around the spindle. A coarse cloth was woven and worn as a tunic which had been cut from the cloth. Kings wore tunics decorated with sheet gold. Decorated pottery was made from clay and used t

g and protecting the garden area and dwelling. Buckets and cauldrons which had originated from the Mediterranean were used. Querns with the top circular stone turned by hand over the bottom stone were used for grinding grain. There were ovens to dry and roast grain. Grain was first eaten as a porridge or cereal. There were square wood granaries on stilts and wood racks on which to dry hay. Grain was stored in concealed pits in the earth which were lined with drystone or basket work or clay and made airtight by sealing with clay or dung. Old pits were converted into waste dumps, burials, or latrines. Outside the fence were an acre or two of fields of whea

would melt and assume the shape of what they had been resting on. These were the first metals, and could be beaten into various shapes, such as ornaments. Then the liquid ore was

en. Buried with them were a few personal items, such as copper daggers, flat copper axes, and awls [small pointed tool for piercing holes in leather, wood, or ot

straight hair pins, safety pins for clothes, armlets, neck-rings, and mirrors. Weapons included bows and arrows, flint and copper daggers, bronze swords and spears, stone axes, and shields of wood with bronze mountings. The bows and arrows probably evolved from spear throwing rods. Kings in body armor fought with chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses had bronze fittings. The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims. When bronze came into use, there was a demand for its const

e of wood, some hung from hinges on posts which could be locked. Later guard chambers were added, some with space for hearths and beds. Sometimes further concentric circles of banks and ditches, and perhaps a second rampart, were added around these forts. They could reach to 14 acres. The ramparts are sufficiently widely spaced to make sling-shotting out from them highly effective, but to minimize the dangers from sling-shotting from without. The additional banks and ditches could be used to create cattle corridors or to protect against spear-thrown firebrands. However, fe

t seeds so they could spring up from the ground as new growth. So farming gave rise to the concept of a year. Certain changes of the year were celebrated, such as Easter, named for the Goddess of the Dawn, which occurred in the east (after lent); May Day celebrating the revival of life; Lammas around July, when the wheat crop was ready for harvesting; and on October 31 the Celtic eve of Samhain, when the spirits of the dead came back to visit ho

f about eight to ten oxen. Each ox was owned by a different man as was the plough, because no one peasant could afford the complete set. Each freeman was allotted certain strips in each field to bear crops. His strips were far from each other, which insured some very fertile and some only fair soil, and some land near his village dwelling and some far away. These strips he cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested for himself and his family. After the harvest, they reverted to common ownership for grazing by pigs, sheep, and geese. As soon as haymaking was over, the meadows became common grazing land for horses, cows, and oxen. Not just any inhabitant, but usually only those who owned a piece of land

n on the Thames River under the protection of the Celtic river god Lud: Lud's town. It's huts were probably built over the water, as was Celtic custom. It was a port for foreign trade. Near the town was

o axes, spearheads, and arrowheads. Mine shafts were up to thirty feet deep and necessitated th

arth would simply be covered over piles of corpses and ashes in urns. In these mass graves, some corpses had spear holes or sword cuts, indicating death by violence. The Druid priests, the learned class of the Celts, taught the Celts to believe in reincarnation of the soul afte

Welsh slave. Criminals became slaves of the person wronged or of the king. Sometimes a father pressed by need sold his children or his wife into bondage. Debtors, who increased in number during famine, which occurred regularly, became slaves by giving up the freeman's sword and spear, picking up a slave's mattock [pick ax for the soils], and placing their head within a lord's or lady's hands. They were called wite-theows. The original meaning of the word lord was "loaf-giver". Children with a slave parent were slaves. The slaves lived in huts around the homes of big landholders, wh

kill his slave at will. A wrong done to a slave was regarded as done to his owner. If a person killed another man's slave, he had to compensate him with the slave's purchase price. The slave owner ha

w. People scoured the hedgerows for herbs, roots, nettles, and wild grasses, which were usually left for the pig

n raised Christian on the continent, met him when he arrived. The King gave him land where there were ruins of an old city. Augustine used stones from the ruins to build a church which was later called Canterbury. He also built the first S

nd his eorls would decide the punishments. There was a fine of 120s. for disregarding a command of the King. He a

an aetheling [a king-worthy man of the extended royal family] was 1500s., of an eorl, 300s., of a ceorl, 100s., of a laet [agricultural worker in Kent, which class was between free and slave], 40-80s., and of a slave nothing. At this time a shilling could buy a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. If a ceorl killed an eorl, he paid three times as much as an eorl would

e

WHICH KING AETHELBERHT ESTABL

a deacon's property, six fold; a cleric's property, three fold; church frith [breach of the peace of the church; right of sanctuary and protection giv

e there do them evil, [let him compensate with] a twofold

, and any one there do any lyswe [e

from the King, let

tun [enclosed dwelling premises],

the King, as drihtin beah [payment to a lor

laad rine [man who walks before the King or guide o

e under] the King's mund byrd [prot

and let the King have the wite [fine] and all the chattels [n

maiden [female servant], let

pay a bot of 25 shillings. The thi

who serves him food or nurse]

orl's tun [premises], let [hi

rele [female cupbearer], let h

place under] a ceorl's mund

t him make bot with 6 shillings; with a slave of the seco

ses], let him make bot with 6 shillings; let him who

e there is a quarrel, though no injury r

apons furnished by another], let him [the man wh

the man who provided the weapo

make bot with a half leod geld [werg

grave let him pay 20 shillings, and

rom the land, let his k

eeman, let him make

f or bread eater; domestic or menial ser

pay 80 shillings; of the second class, let him pay 60

the fenced enclosure and forcibly entering a ceo

y from a dwelling, let

rough an edor [the fence enclosing a dwe

, let him pay with his own money, a

it with his wer geld, and obtain another wife with his

m scyld [legal means of protecting one

ng someone by the hair], let

of the bone, let bot b

to the bone, let bot b

covering the brain] be broken, l

embranes covering the brain], le

med, let bot be mad

off, let bot be ma

r not, let bot be ma

ed, let bot be mad

ted, let bot be mad

] out, let bot be ma

be injured, let bot be

ced, let bot be mad

let bot be made

d, let bot be mad

ilated, for each [cut, let]

let bot be made

he jaw bone pay for

ich stands next to them 4 shillings; for that which stands next

ings. If the collar bone be broken

, make bot with 6 shillings. If an arm be

struck off, let bot be made with 8 shillings. If the middle finger be struck off, let bot be made with 4 shillings. If the gold [

nail, a

of the face, 3 shillings; and

ther with his fist on

receive a right hand bruise [from protecting his fac

in a part not covered by the cloth

clothes, let bot for eac

with 12 shillings; if it be pierced thr

[pregnant], let bot be

[badly wounded], let bot

him with 3 leod gelds: if he pierce it through, let him make bot with

with 12 shillings; if the man become h

n, let bot be mad

ab 6 shillings; if [the wound be] above an inch [deep],

ded, let bot be ma

t off, let 50 s

cut off, let 10

let one half that for the

f, 30 scaetts for bot; for each of t

hair] commit any leswe [evil deed],

for injury to an unmarried wo

of an eorl's degree, let the bot be 50 shillings; of the second, 2

under his own protection by r

if it be without fraud; but if there be fraud, let him bri

e shall have half the proper

th her children, she shal

[the children], [she shall have

and chattels] and the morgen gyfe [morning gift: a gift made to the bride

pay 50 shillings to the owner, and afterward

ney [at a bride price], let him [who car

egnant], 35 shillings; and

wife, her husband still livi

unoffending, let him pay

struck out or off, let him

man's esne, let him ma

eaf [highway robbery] of a t

ake twofold bot [twice the

al Pro

f wrongful behavior such as breach of the peace. Punis

s, to settle widespread disputes. The chief officer was "hundreder" or

decided all disp