DOM-BOC, or DOOM-BOOK (book of dooms or sentences, fiber judicialis), the code of laws compiled by king Alfred, chiefly from the west-Saxon collection of his own ances tor Ina, but comprising also many portions of the Kentish collection of Ethelbert, with the supplements of his successors, and of the Mercian laws of Offa. " Ina's collection," says Dr. Pauli, "was the only one received entire into the Codex, which was chiefly applicable to the condition of the west Saxons. A few articles were admitted here and , there from the Kentish and Mercian laws, but research into this matter is not possible, as Offa's book is lost." Alfred made few if any original laws, but contented him self with restoring, renovating, and improving those which he found already in exist ence. The west-Saxon dialect had become a written language earlier than any of the Teutonic dialects of the continent; and as the power of the clergy in Saxon England was of a more limited kind than elsewhere, the laws of England, up to the period of the Norman conquest, were administered in the vernacular speech of the people. Alfred's
peculiarly Christian character is strongly impressed on his code, which begins with extracts from the Bible, "The Lord spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God." Then follow the ten commandments, the part of the Mosaic law relating to criminal offenses, and passages from the New Testament, including the golden rule. Yet it should be observed, that these extracts prove not the ecclesiastical, but only the scriptural character of the dom-boc. The code was ratified by the Witan, as Alfred expressly informs us. In addition to Dr. Pauli's life of Alfred, now pub lished in two English translations, the reader is referred, for information on this sub ject, to Thorpe's Introduction to Alfred's Laws, in the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, i. p. 58.