12. DOOMS OF AETHELRED (980-1016)
II, 8. If any one seizes something that he lost, the man in whose possession it was seized shall give solemn engagement and provide surety that he will present his warrantor whenever formal claim [to the property] is made.[1] If he vouches a living person to warranty, and the one thus summoned is in another shire, he shall have as long a time [for his process] as may be necessary.... If he summons [a warrantor] from across one shire, he shall have a week's time; if he summons [one] from across two shires, he shall have two weeks' time; if he summons [one] from across three shires, he shall have three weeks' time — as many shires as he has to send across, so many weeks' time shall he have.
III. These are the laws (laga) that King Aethelred and his witan have drawn up at Wantage for the improvement of the peace....
3.... And a court shall be held in every wapentake and there the twelve leading (yldestan) thegns,[2] together with the reeve, shall come forward and swear on holy things, to be placed in their hands, that they will neither accuse any innocent man nor spare any guilty one....
6. And every accuser shall have the right to choose which [ordeal] he will [have the accused undergo], either water or iron. And every vouching to warranty (team) and every ordeal shall be held in a borough of the king....
13. And if any man is accused of giving food to a man who has broken our [royal] lord's peace (grið), he shall clear himself with thrice twelve [oath-helpers], and the latter shall be named by the reeve [of the king].... And that doom shall stand when the thegns [who declare it] are agreed; [or] if they disagree, that [doom] shall stand which is declared by eight of them, and those who are thereby outvoted shall each pay [a fine of] 6 half-marks.[3] ...
IV, 5. They[4] have also declared that, to their eyes, no difference exists between counterfeiters and the merchants who take good money to the counterfeiters and pay them to make [from it] impure money of insufficient weight, and who then trade and bargain with it; [or between counterfeiters] and those who secretly make dies, engraving on them the name of some moneyer other than the guilty party, and who sell them to the counterfeiters. Wherefore it has been decided by all the witan that these three [kinds of] men shall be made liable for the same punishment. And if one of them is accused, whether he is English or comes from beyond sea, he shall clear himself through the full ordeal.[5] And they have decided that [convicted] counterfeiters shall [each] lose a hand, which shall be exhibited over the place where they made their coin. And moneyers who work in woods, or make coin in [other secret] places of the same sort, shall forfeit their lives, unless the king wishes to spare them....
9. And it has been decided that there shall be fewer moneyers than heretofore: there shall be three moneyers in every principal port, and one in every other port.[6] ...
VI, 31. Let us all, furthermore, give earnest attention to the improvement of the peace and the improvement of the coinage.
32. The improvement of the peace [shall be] such as is best for the husbandman (bondan) and worst for the thief. And the coinage shall be so improved that one coinage, free of all false [issue], shall have currency throughout the whole land. And weights and measures shall be made exactly right, to the exclusion in the future of all wrong ones. And the repair of boroughs (burhbote) and the repair of bridges (bricbote) shall be earnestly pushed in every region;[7] and likewise the maintenance of the army and the fleet, whenever there is need, and as may be ordered in our common necessity.
33. And it is well to have in readiness the ships for the fleet (fyrdscipa) soon after Easter in every year....
35. And if any one, without leave, deserts the army when the king is there, he risks losing all his property.
(Anglo-Saxon and Latin) Ibid., I, 224, f.
[1] See above, p. 4, n. 3.
[2] On the possible connection between this doom and the Norman grand jury, see Pollock and Maitland, I, 139-43. Cf. the lawmen of Domesday and the scabini of the Frankish courts; Helen M. Cam, Local Government in Francia and England, pp. 31 f.
[3] The mark was a Danish unit of account, normally held to contain 8 ounces or ores of 20d. each, and so rated as two-thirds of a pound.
[4] The king's witan.
[5] See no. 8A.
[6] Cf. Aethelstan, II, 14 (above, p. 14).
[7] On the borough as a fortification, see above, p. 14, n. 7. On the threefold obligation resting with all landholders, cf. Canute, II, 65 (below, p. 24), and the charters under no. 15, below. This was the famous trimoda necessitas, on which term see W. H. Stevenson, in the English Historical Review, XXIX, 689 f.