V. BOOK was fix fhillings. This privilege of the mund feems to be the principle of the doctrine, that every man's house is his caftle. THE mund was the guardian of a man's household peace as the were was of his perfonal fafety. If any one drew a weapon where men were drinking, and the floor was ftained with blood, befides forfeiting to the king fifty fhillings, he had to pay a compenfation to the mafter of the houfe for the violation of his mundbyrd 5. THE CHAP. VI. Their Borb, or Sureties. HE fyftem of giving fureties or bail, to an- c H A P. fwer an accufation, feems to have been co eval with the Saxon nation, and has continued to our times. In one of our earlieft laws it was provided, that the accufed fhould be bound over by his fureties to anfwer the crime of which he was accused, and to do what the judges fhould appoint. IF he neglected to find bail he was to forfeit twelve fhillings. Thefe bail were not to be taken indif criminately; for the laws of Ina enact, that the bail might be refufed if the magiftrate knew that he acted right in the refufal 2. FELONIES are not bailable now; in the AngloSaxon times it was otherwife. IF a man was accused of theft he was to find borh or fureties; if he could not do this, his goods were taken as fecurity. If he had none he was imprifoned till judgment 3. WHEN a homicide pledged himself to the pay ment of the were, he was to find borh for it. The borh was to confit of twelve fureties; eight from the paternal line, and four from the maternal 4. If a man was accufed of witchcraft, he was to find borh to abstain from it 5. VI. BOOK V. If a man was found guilty of theft by the ordeal, he was to be killed, unless his relations would fave him by paying his were and ceap-gyld, and give borh for his good behaviour afterwards. BUT the most curious part of the Saxon borh was not the fureties which they who were accused or condemned were to find to appear to the charge or to perform the judgment pronounced; but it was the fyftem that every individual should be under bail for his good behaviour. IT has been mentioned that Alfred is flated to have divided England into counties, hundreds, and tythings-that every person was directed to belong to fome tything or hundred, and that every hundred and tenth were pledged to the prefervation of the public peace, and anfwerable for the conduct of their inhabitants 7. Of this statement it may be only doubted whe ther he divided England into counties or fhires. Thefe divifions certainly existed before Alfred. The fhire is mentioned in the laws of Ina, and we know that the counties of Kent, Effex, Suffex exifted as little kingdoms from the first invafion of the Saxons. Of the other counties we also find many expressly mentioned in the Saxon history anterior to Alfred's reign. IT may however be true, that he may have separated and named fome particular fhires, and this partial operation may have occafioned the whole of the general fact to be applied to him. • Wilk. p. 65. 72 Hift. Anglo-Saxons, p. 377. VI. THE fyftem of placing all the people under borh CHA P. originated from Altred, according to the hiftorians; but we first meet with it clearly expreffed in the laws in the time of Edgar. By his laws, it is thus directed: "Every man fhall find and have borh, " and the borh fhall produce him to every legal "charge, and fhall keep him, and if he have done any wrong and escapes, his borh fhall bear what "he ought to have borne. But if it be theft, and "the borh can bring him forward within twelve "months, then what the borh paid fhall be re"turned to him "." THIS important and burthenfomé inftitution is thus again repeated by the fame prince: "This is "then what I will; that every man be under borh, "both in burghs and out of them; and where this "has not been done, let it be fettled in every bo"rough and in every hundred "." IT is thus again repeated in the laws of Ethelred : 66 Every freeman fhall have true borh that the "borh may hold him to every right, if he should "be accufed "." The fame laws direct that if the accused fhould fly and decline the ordeal, the borh was to pay to the accufer the ceap gyld, and to the lord his were 12. And as to that And as to that part of the population which was in the fervile ftate, their lords were to be the fureties for their conduct 13. THE man who was accufed and had no borh, might be killed and buried with the infamous 14. NOTHING feems more repugnant to the decorous feelings of manly independence than this flavish 1 V. BOOK bondage and anticipated criminality. It degraded every man to the character of an intended culprit ; as one whose propenfities to crime were fo flagrant that he could not be trufted for his good conduct, to his religion, his reason, his habits, or his honour. Every one was prefumed to be fo full of innate vice, that nothing could fave fociety from universal iniquity, but that every one fhould find legal fureties. that he would not commit it. Such a law was a libel on human nature, and must have created more depravity than it prevented. This indeed feems to have been experienced; for no period more abounded with political or focial vices and calamities than the reigns which followed the establishment of this law, if we date it from Edgar. |