een an attempt of
that great legislator towards establishing a better police in the
kingdom, and it probably remained without execution. By the laws of
the same prince, a conspiracy against the life of the king might be
redeemed by a fine [h].
[FN [d] Tyrrel, Introduction, vol. i. p.126. Carte, vol. i. p. 366.
[e] Lindenbrogius, passim. [f] Tac. de Mor. Germ. [g] LL. Aelf. Sec.
12. Wilkins, p. 29. It is probable that by wilful murder Alfred
means a treacherous murder, committed by one who had no declared feud
with another. [h] LL. Aelf. Sec. 4 Wilkins, p. 35.]

The price of all kinds of wounds was likewise fixed by the Saxon laws:
a wound of an inch long under the hair, was paid with one shilling;
one of a like size in the face, two shillings: thirty shillings for
the loss of an ear, and so forth [i]. There seems not to have been
any difference made, according to the dignity of the person. By the
laws of Ethelbert, any one who committed adultery with his neighbour's
wife, was obliged to pay him a fine, and buy him another wife [k].
[FN [i] LL. Elf. Sec. 40. See also, LL. Ethelb. Sec. 34, &c. [k] LL.
Ethelb. Sec. 32.]

These institutions are not peculiar to the ancient Germans. They seem
to be the necessary progress of criminal jurisprudence among every
free people, where the will of the sovereign is not implicitly obeyed.
We find them among the ancient Greeks during the time of the Trojan
war. Compositions for murder are mentioned in Nestor's speech to
Achilles in the ninth Iliad and are called APOINAI. The Irish, who
never had any connexions with the German nations, adopted the same
practice till very lately; and the price of a man's head was called
among them his ERIC; as we learn from Sir John Davis. The same custom
seems also to have prevailed among the Jews [l].
[FN [l] Exod. cap. xxi. 29, 30.]

Theft and robbery were frequent among the Anglo-Saxons. In order to
impose some check upon these crimes, it was ordained, that no man
should sell or buy any thing above twenty-pence value, except in open
market [m]; and every bargain of sale must be executed before
witnesses [n]. Gangs of robbers much disturbed the peace of the
country; and the law determined, that a tribe of banditti, consisting
of between seven and thirty-five persons, was to be called a TURMA, or
troop: any greater company was denominated an army [o]. The
punishments for this crime were various, but none of them capital [p].
If an