The church-history of Brittany from the beginning of Christianity to the Norman conquest under Roman governours, Brittish kings, the English-Saxon heptarchy, the English-Saxon (and Danish) monarchy ... : from all which is evidently demonstrated that the present Roman Catholick religion hath from the beginning, without interruption or change been professed in this our island, &c. / by R.F., S. Cressy of the Holy Order of S. Benedict.

* 1.1XV. CHAP.

1.2. &c. Of King Ina's Lawes: especially such as regard the Church.

4 &c. The Welsh, whence so called, &c.

6 7 Preists, whether then maried.

8. The Saxons, &c. tender of shedding blood.

1. THE same year Inas King of the West-Saxons being desirous to compose and settle his kingdom in good order, by rooting out such ill customes as had crepp'd in among the people, called an Assembly of his Bishops and Nobility, (at which great numbers of other inferiour Ecclesiasticall and Secular persons were present also,) and by common advice enacted those famous Lawes, called King Ina's Lawes, which conti∣nued in force many ages, even till the co∣ming and Conquest of the Normans, and of which William of Malmsbury saith,* 1.2 a mirrour of their purity remained to his time. These were seaventy five in number, and are ex∣tant in Sir Henry Spelmans collection of Councils, to which the curious Reader may have recourse. I will onely select a few of them, such as regard Ecclesiasticall affaires, and therefore are pertinent to this History.

2. In the first place (saith King Inas) wee command that Gods Ministers be carefull to ob∣serve the Canonicall order of living:* 1.3 And our Will is, that these Lawes and Ordinances be obser∣ved by the people 2. Let each infant be baptized within thirty dayes after he is born. If this be not done let the person in fault be fined in thirty shillings (solidis.) But if it happen that the in∣fant dye before he is baptized, let the faulty per∣sons forfeyt their whole estate. 3. If a servant (a slave) shall doe any servile work on our Lords day by his Masters command, let him be free, and his Master fined in thirty shillings. But if the ser∣vant without command of his Master doe any such work, let him be whipped, or redeem that penalty with money. If a free man work on that day, not commanded by his Master, let him either be made a slave, or pay sixty shillings. And if a Preist offend in this kind, let his penalty be doubled. 4. Let the Firsts-fruits of seeds be payed on the so∣lemnity of S. Martin. And whosoever shall not then pay them, Let him be fined in forty shil∣lings, and moreover pay the said First-fruits twelve-fold. 5 If any one guilty of a Capitall Of∣fence shall flye to the Church, Let him enioy his life, and make compensation according to iustice and Law. And if any one who has committed a fault punishable onely with stripes, and shall im∣plore the priviledge and favour of the Church, let those stripes be remitted.

3. Then after severall Ordinances tou∣ching Civill matters follows the eleaventh Law, If any one shall buy one of his own coun∣trey, servant or free, or guilty of any crime, and shall send him away to be sold beyond sea, let his penalty be the full price of such a person, and moreover let him make full satisfaction both to God and his Master. (That this was the an∣cient custom among the Saxons to sell their children, hath been formerly declared in the relation how S. Gregory having seen in the Roman market-place certain children brought to sale out of the Province of the Northumbers, was by that spectacle moved to procure the conversion of our countrey.) The twelfth Law is, If any one shall bring a false testimony or pledge before a Bishop, let his penal∣ty be one hundred and twenty shillings (so••lidos.)

4 We will hereto add the two and twen∣tieth Law, though not regarding the Church, because therin is the first mention that can any where be found of the Welsh (Walli.) Let a Wallus (or stranger) who payes an annuall taxe, be rated at one hundred and twenty shil∣lings: and his Son, at one hundred. From whence we may observe that the German-Saxons among us called the Brittains, Walli or Welch∣men, (a Name which they never gave to themselves) and the utmost Western Province, Cornwall, not from a certain Qveen called Wallia, nor as descended from the Gaules, but because they were strangers, and spoke a language not understood by them, for such the Germans call Wealsh: and hence it is that the lower Germans called their neighbours towards France,* 1.4 Wallons, as Camden has lear∣nedly observed.

5. There remain onely three Laws which regard Bishops, and the Font of Baptism. One is the forty sixth Law, in which by the piety and sence of that age a King and a Bishop are in a sort esteemed equall. Let one hundred and twenty shillings be the penalty of one breaking peace in a town of the King or Bishop: and four∣score shillings, in the town of a Senatour (who is called in the Saxon tongue Ealdorman, and Eorle) &c. Another Law is this, Let every one pay the first fruits of his Seeds out of that house in which he abode at the Solemnity of our Lords Na∣tivity.

6. The last, being the seaventy fifth in or∣der is this, If any one shall kill the God-father or God-son of any one, let him pay to the kinred of the person slain as much as is due to a Lord for compensation of the slaughter of his servant And let this payment be encreased or diminished ac∣cording to the rate of the slain persons estimation, in like manner as the payment to a Lord for his servant slain is to be rated. But if the person slain was the Kings God-son, let satisfaction be made to him according to that made to the kinred of the

slain.* 1.5 But if such a mans life was taken away by one of his kinred, let some abatement be made of the money to be payed to the God-Father, accor∣dingly as it uses to be done when money is to be payed to the Lord for the slaughter of his servant. And if he who is slain be the Son of a Bishop, let the amercement be diminished by the halfe.

7. As touching this last clause Sir Henry Spelman well observes, That whereas some Writers would thence contend that Bishops in this age were married, because here is mention made of a Bishops Son, they are mistaken: For this is not to be understood of the Naturall or coniugall Son of a Bishop, but of his spirituall Son, for whom he was undertaker at the Sacred font. This is mani∣fest from the Rubrick of this Law, which is inscri∣bed, Of the slaughter of a God-father or God-son, or to use the ancient Terms, Of him that shall kill Patrinum or filiolum of any one. For in old time a God-father or undertaker for one in Baptisme was called Patrinus, and a God-son, filiolus: (as now in France, Parrain and Filieul.)

8. In generall, from these Laws of King Inas wee may observe, That among the Sa∣xons, man slaughter was never punished with death, but onely with a fine of money: nor any other crime except Robbery, and that com∣mitted not by a single person, but by at least seaven in a troop: So tender they were of blood. Wheras in later times the life of a man is become of so low an estimation, that the losse of it is made the satisfaction for a trifle, as the private pilfering of any thing beyond the valew of a shilling. And the like tendernes of mens lives wee may observe in the Lawes of all the Northern Na∣tions of old, as the Visigoths, Vandals, Lom∣bards, &c.

Notes

• * 1.1

  XV. CH.
• * 1.2

  Malmsbur. de Reg l. 1. c. 2. Spelm. de Synod. f. 182.
• * 1.3

  Ibid.
• * 1.4

  Camd. in Danmoniis.
• * 1.5

  A. D. 687.