if he cannot, let him pay the angylde' of the property, and let both reeveships have the full suit in common, be it wherever it may, as well as to the north of the march as to the south, always from one shire to another; so that every reeve may assist another, for the common 'frith' of us all, by the king's 'oferhyrnes.'

"5. And also that every one shall help another, as it is ordained and by 'weds' confirmed; and such man as shall neglect this beyond the march, let him be liable in xxx pence, or an ox, if he aught of this neglect which stands in our writings, and we with our weds' have confirmed.

"6. And we have also ordained respecting every man who has given his 'wed' in our gildships, if he should die, that each gildbrother shall give a 'gesufel' loaf for his soul, and sing a fifty, or get it sung within xxx days.

"7. And we also command our hiremen' that each man shall know when he has his cattle, or when he has not, on his neighbour's witness, and that he point out to us the track, if he cannot find it within three days; for we believe that many heedless men reck not how their cattle go, for over-confidence in the 'frith.'

"8. Then we command that within iii days he make it known to his neighbours, if he will ask for the 'ceapgild'; and let the search nevertheless go on as it was before ordained, for we will not pay for any unguarded property, unless it be stolen. Many men speak fraudulent speech. If he cannot point out to us the track, let him show on oath with iii of his neighbours that it has been stolen within iii days, and after that let him ask for his 'ceapgild.'

"9. And let it not be denied nor concealed, if our lord or any of our reeves should suggest to us any addition to our 'frith-gilds' that we will joyfully accept the same, as it becomes us all, and may

be advantageous to us. But let us trust in God and our kingly lord, if we fulfil all things thus, that the affairs of all folk will be better with respect to theft than they before were. If, however, we slacken in the frith' and the 'wed' which we have given, and the king has commanded of us, then may we expect, or well know, that these thieves will prevail yet more than they did before. But let us keep our 'weds' and the 'frith' as is pleasing to our lord; it greatly behoves us that we devise that which he wills; and if he order and instruct us more, we shall be humbly ready.

"" NINTH.

"That we have ordained: respecting those thieves whom one cannot immediately discover to be guilty, and one afterwards learns that they are guilty and liable; that the lord or the kinsmen should release him in the same manner as those men are released who are found guilty at the ordeal.

"TENTH.

'That all the 'witan' gave their 'weds' altogether to the archbishop at Thunresfeld, when Elfeah Stybb and Brihtnoth Odda's son came to meet the 'gemot' by the king's command; that each reeve should take the 'wed' in his own shire: that they would all hold the 'frith' as king Æthelstan and his 'witan' had counselled it, first at Greatanlea, and again at Exeter, and afterwards at Feversham, and a fourth time at Thunresfeld, before the archbishop and all the bishops, and his 'witan' whom the king himself named, who were thereat: that those dooms should be observed which were fixed at this 'gemot,' except those which were there before done away with; which was, Sunday marketing, and that with full and true witness any one might buy out of port.

"ELEVENTH.

"That Æthelstan commands his bishops and his 'ealdormen' and all his reeves over all my realm, that ye so hold the 'frith' as I and my 'witan' have ordained; and if any of you neglect it, and will not obey me, and will not take the 'wed' of his hiremen,' and he allow of secret compositions, and will not attend to these regulations as I have commanded, and it stands in our writs; then be the reeve without his 'folgoth,' and without my friendship, and pay me cxx shillings; and each of my thanes who has land, and will not keep the regulations as I have commanded, [let him pay] half that.

"TWELFTH.

"1. That the king now again has ordained to his 'witan' at Witlanburh, and has commanded it to be made known to the archbishop by bishop Theodred, that it seemed to him too cruel that so young a man should be killed, and besides for so little, as he has learned has somewhere been done. He then said, that it seemed to him, and to those who counselled with him, that no younger person should be slain than xv years, except he should make resistance or flee, and would not surrender himself; that then he should be slain, as well for more as for less, whichever it might be. But if he be willing to surrender himself, let him be put into prison, as it was ordained at Greatanlea, and by the same let him be redeemed.

"2. Or if he come not into prison, and they have none, that they take him in 'borh' by his fullwer,' that he will evermore desist from every kind of evil. If the kindred will not take him out, nor enter into 'borh' for him, then let him swear as the bishop may instruct him, that he will desist from every kind of evil, and stand in servitude by his 'wer.' But if he after that again steal, let him be slain or hanged, as was before done to the elder ones.

66 3. And the king has also ordained, that no one should be slain for less property than xii pence worth, unless he will flee or defend himself; and that then no one should hesitate, though it were for less. If we it thus hold, then trust I in God that our 'frith will be better than it has before been.'

There are various interpretations of the nature of these statutes. Gierke,2 for example, seems to have

Stubbs, Constitutional History, i. pp. 440, 450, appears to be in some doubt as to the matter. He takes these to be the statutes of a frith gild of the City of London, but at the same time recognises "a distinct attempt on the part of the public authorities to supplement the defective execution of the law by measures for mutual defence." The two hardly seem compatible. Seligman, Two Chapters on the Mediaval Guilds, pp. 13-15, takes the statutes to be those of a "fully developed frith guild," authorised by the government officers: not a union of smaller guilds. Hegel, Städte und Gilden, i. pp. 24-8, on the other hand, regards the organisation as the union of a number of frith gilds, which cannot itself be called a gild, however. Brentano, too (following Wilda, Gildenwesen, p. 245), infers a union of the gilds in and around London, see Arbeitergilden, i. pp. 9, 10, 21. Also Walford, Gilds, p. 70, and Insurance Cyclopædia, v. p. 362; Green, History of the English People, i. p. 210. Loftie, History of London, i. p. 68, refers to the body as a social-religious gild. Coote, Romans of Britain, p. 397, looks on it as a gild like other gilds; as also apparently Ehrenberg, Gilden, p. 726. Smith, English Gilds, p. xvii, Traditions of the Old Crown House, p. 28; and Hartwig, Untersuchungen über die ersten Anfänge des Gildenwesens, pp. 139-41, both consider that the reference is to ordinary gilds, as does the writer of the article "Frith-gild" in the Dictionary of English History, see p. 483, and Lambert, Two Thousand Years of Gild Life, pp. 45-7. Ochenkowski, England's Wirtschaftliche Entwickelung, p. 57, disagrees with Brentano's theory and points out that the only gild of which we have any definite information at the time retained its independence to the end, viz. the Cniths' Gild. See also Gross, Gild Merchant, i. p. 181. Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen, p. xlvi, regards c. 2-8 as actual gild statutes drawn up by the gilds themselves (c. 8, § 9) side by side with regulations which are to be regarded as the law of the land. [For note 2 see next page.

no doubt that they are the regulations of actual gilds, authorised by the royal "gerefa" and by the bishop, and draws special attention to the fact that they were not merely political, but made provision for periodical festive gatherings and for almsgiving from a religious standpoint,2 and above all were concerned with morals. "Emerging at a time when the safety alike of person and property was small, when officials participated actively in the suppression rather than the preservation of liberty... these bodies must of necessity assume the character of frith gilds."3 Herein Gierke finds the explanation of the fact that the statutes not merely provided for the indemnification of the one who suffered loss,4 but made the pursuit of the thief the business of every member.5

Gross, on the other hand, takes an opposite view. He looks on the Judicia civitatis Lundoniæ not as the statutes of a gild at all, but as an addition to the general laws of the land, and he regards as I Judicia civitatis Lundoniæ, c. 8, § 1.

2 Ibid.

3 Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, i. p. 230.

4 Judicia civitatis Lundoniæ, c. 2.

5 Ibid., c. 2 and 4.

6 Gild Merchant, i. pp. 178-81.

Continuation of note from preceding page.]

He advances the hypothesis that we have here a collection of gild rules and general laws compiled by the spiritual and temporal authorities, which they imposed upon the frith gilds: see p. xlvii. Ramsay, Foundations of England, i. p. 350, regards the organisation as "an arrangement of the population of the city

in groups. . . . Some of the provisions point to a voluntary element in the matter of joining a particular 'gildship' (c. 8, § 6). This may have been a privilege open to the citizens of a great city. The regulations as a whole may be regarded as a special development, but only a development of something connected with a general system."

2 Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, i. pp. 230, note 27; 233. Of a similar opinion, Marquardsen, Ueber Haft und Bürgschaft bei den Angelsachsen, pp. 42, 43.