But regular and wise as this plan of government ap pears in the description of historians, it was in all pro bability but little effective in preserving general hap piness, except during the reigns of Alfred and a few other vigilant sovereigns. Of Alfred's reign, the jus tice and equality arc proverbial; and it is barely pos sible that, in his days, a purse of gold might have hung on the highway with security. But what are we to think of that state of society, when the national repre sentatives robbed on the highway, and when a king of England, the grandson of Alfred, was murdered at his own table, by a notorious robber, who had the audacity to take his seat, at a feast of the king and his nobility!" In the history of their criminal courts, while we trace to those rude progenitors the invaluable privilege of trial by jury, we find also many proceedings the most eccentric and barbarous. The lahmen had indeed re course to their dome-boc, or statute-book, but as they had no idea of cross-examining witnesses, the bench was obliged to have recourse to compurgators to en lighten the cause. These were the friends of the accu ser and the accused ; the last, after the culprit had taken an oath that lie was innocent, stretched forth their hands and swore to his innocence, while the others made oath to his guilt. The value of the oaths was ad judged by the weregeld, or price of life of the swearer ; in other words, by his rank and wealth. In such a con test of oaths, it is evident that the poor man had but a slender chance of justice. But an improvement to the athantage of equity took place in the Anglo-Saxon courts, which was, that the court, not the parties, chose their compurgators ; and a power was thus vested in righteous judges, to appoint them of equal credibility on both sides. A farther progress in the cause of jus tice was made, when it was ordained that those swearers or juratores, the prototypes or modern jurymen, were bound to hear the statement of both parties, and the evidence of witnesses, before they delivered their ver dict or oath of truth. As juries became more frequent, the absurd and inhuman trials by ordeal and combat grew happily into disuse.
7. The trials by ordeal and combat, form a striking, though unpleasing, feature in the manners of our Anglo Saxon ancestors. The trial by combat has been so fre quently described, that it is needless to intrude it at present on the reader ; nor is it necessary to enter into a minute description of the various forms of the trial by ordeal. It is sufficient to say, that this practice of su perstition, though it might owe its origin to paganism, was undoubtedly cherished by the Christian priesthood, as a means of transferring no small portion of the civil authority into their own hands. It was in fact an appeal from the civil to the ecclesiastical authority, or as igno rance from human to divine adjudication. In the trial of ordeal by hot iron, though the culprit was to grasp a piece of that metal heated, he had an opportunity, by the laws of the ceremony, of being alone with the priest in church, for some time before the admission of specta tors, and of making his terms with the holy man, who, amidst the sprinkling of consecrated water, and other mummeries, had many facilities of cheating the distant spectators. Besides, it was not required as a proof of innocence, that the hand shoutd not be scorched, but only that its wound should not exhibit a guilty appear ance, after being immediately bound up, and inspected at the end of three days. The same ceremony that
gave such scope for evading justice, we may also be lieve afforded latitude for a thousand inhumanities.
8. The penal laws of the Anglo-Saxons, of which we shall attempt to give a short, and, from the narrowness of our limits, necessarily an imperfect sketch, were not in general sanguinary. It seemed to be their object, as we have before observed, rather to give compensa tion to the loser by fraud or violence, than to hold up examples of terror. Nevertheless, very severe and bar barous punishments are found, both in their laws, and in the history of their executive jurisprudence. These instances of severity arose from two causes. The poor and unprotected were necessarily exposed, in many in stances, to the vengeance, instead of the justice, of their superiors; and when they could not make good the pecuniary mulcts attached to certain crimes, were de livered over to inordinate personal punishments. Among these we find imprisonment, outlawry, banishment, sla very, whipping. branding, pillorying, amputation, muti lation of the nose, ears, and lips, plucking out the eyes, tearing off the hair, stoning, and hanging. From ano ther cause, we may also suppose occasional deviations from the ordinary practice of pecuniary mulct. When enlightened monarchs, such as Alfred or Edmund, whose life was sacrificed to his love of justice, found that robbery or other crimes could not be repressed by such inadequate means as the inflicting a fine, they proposed to their legislature, and obtained the confir mation of laws, consigning notorious pests of society to the gibbet. This was done by Edmund, already men tioned, who prohibited the compounding of felony by a a mulcut Compensation, however, after all these exceptions, still appears as the ruling principle of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. Though the violator of a child incur red the penalty of a severe mutilation, murder could be atoned at a fixed sum. Man-slaughter was nearly on the same footing, and every wound had a regular price. In their most ancient laws it is curious to find the fol lowing penalties awarded: For the loss of a leg or an eye, fifty shillings ;$ for a wound that occasioned lame ness, thirty shillings; for one that occasioned deafness, twenty-five ; for piercing the nose, nine shil lings ; a front tooth was atoned for by six shillings ; an eye tooth by four shillings. For shaving a ceorl or yeoman, so as to expose him to derision, the offender forfeited ten shillings. The punishment of theft was different at different periods. By the laws of Ina, the thief was even sentenced to death ; but still the old principle of compensation operated as a check on this severity ; he might redeem his life by pa) ing his were geld. in the punishments enacted for adultery, Alfred seems to have been a minute casuist; he distinguished the different steps of guilt, from the first proposals of gallantry to the full completion of the crime. To han dle the neck of a ceorl's wife, incurred a fine of five shillings; to throw her down, without farther conse quences, was punished by a fine of ten shillings; and for a subsequent commission of the crime, sixty shil lings. By the laws of Edgar, calumny is ordered to be punished by the loss of the defamer's tongue ; while the punishment for killing the king, was only to pay his weregeld, or price of life, valued at 240 pounds, equal in quantity of silver to about 720 pounds, and in effect (as Dr Henry calculates) to 7200 pounds of our money.