[*] The punishments for this crime were
various, but none of them capital.[**] If any man could track his stolen
cattle into another's ground, the latter was obliged to show the tracks
out of it, or pay their value.[***]
Rebellion, to whatever excess it was carried, was not capital but
might be redeemed by a sum of money.[****] The legislators, knowing
it impossible to prevent all disorders, only imposed a higher fine
on breaches of the peace committed in the king's court, or before an
alderman or bishop. An ale-house, too, seems to have been considered as
a privileged place; and any quarrels that arose there were more severely
punished than else where.[*****]
[* LL. Inae, sect. 12.]
[* LL. Inae, sect. 37.]
[* LL. AEthelst. sect. 2. Wilkins, p. 63.]
[* LL. Ethelredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110. LL. AElf. sect. 4.
Wilkins, p35.]
[* LL. Hloth. et Eadm. sect. 12, 13. LL. Ethelr. apud
Wilkins, P 117.]
If the manner of punishing crimes among the Anglo-Saxons appear
singular, the proofs were not less so; and were also the natural result
of the situation of those people. Whatever we may imagine concerning the
usual truth and sincerity of men who live in a rude and barbarous state,
there is much more falsehood, and even perjury, among them, than among
civilized nations: virtue, which is nothing but a more enlarged and more
cultivated reason, never flourishes to any degree, nor is founded
on steady principles of honor, except where a good education becomes
general; and where men are taught the pernicious consequences of vice,
treachery, and immorality.
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