neglect of the new peace-regulations he was making. Anyone was liable
to it who sold goods other than before witnesses in a licensed borough,
or refused to submit to the courts in a land dispute; and so was the reeve
who failed to see that right was done. Reeves were to hold their courts
monthly, that all men might have their folkright and every plea (aelc
spraec; placitum) an end. One who persistently broke the oath and
pledge taken by the whole people was to lose the king’s friendship (ure
ealra freonscipes) and all he possessed. Those that harboured him
should forfeit ‘as the lawbook says’ (domboc secge; liber iudiciorum
docet); but if it was in East Anglia or Northumbria, the penalties should
be according to the peace-agreements (fridgewritu; scripta pacis) made
with the people of those parts.^76
Edward’s successors built urgently on his foundations, repeating his
demands that the peace be better kept. At Grately, King Athelstan
issued a comprehensive set of laws about the pursuit, trial, and punish-
ment of thieves, which emphasized the obligation of everyone to attend
meetings and ride with their boroughs after malefactors.^77 The bishops
and reeves of ‘London-borough’ added to Athelstan’s regulations and
set up what the post-Conquest translator could still only call their
fridgild. Their regulations, as Athelstan confirmed them, required each
hundred-reeve to dine monthly with the heads of tithings in his district,
‘to take note how our agreement is being observed’. When they rode out
after cattle-thieves, hundred after hundred was to take up the trail, and
reeve assist reeve, ‘for the sake of all our peace and on pain of the king’s
special fine’ (to ure ealra fride, be cynges oferhyrnesse). ‘We believe that
many heedless men do not care how their cattle wander, out of over-
confidence in the peace.’ The London ordinance set out the whole philo-
sophy of the peace which the people had promised to the king, a pledge
of which every reeve should take from his shire.^78
The idea of a peace over everyone crystallized as the king established
a uniform set of courts and procedures. By Edward’s laws a man found
his own oath-helpers to defend his property in court: by Athelstan’s,
independent jurors were chosen for him, to swear ‘according to
folkright’.^79 In the laws he made at Andover (959 ×963), King Edgar
specified three types of court which were to be held throughout the
country: the hundred, which was to meet as previously arranged (i.e.
28 Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Justice
(^76) Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i. 139–45 (I Edw. 1,1; 2,1; II Edw. 1–2, 4–5);
ibid. ii. 161; J. E. A. Jolliffe, The Constitutional History of Medieval England, 2nd edn.
(London, 1948), 109.
(^77) Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i. 160–1 (II As. 20), 166–7 (V As. pro.), 83
(VI As. 12,3).
(^78) Ibid. i.178–83 (VI As. 8,1; 8,4; 8,7; 8,9; 10–12, 3); H. R. Loyn, The Governance of
Anglo-Saxon England, 500–1087(London, 1984), 146.
(^79) Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, i. 154–5 (II As. 9).