er regulations:[84] prescribing that no man shall
fight with another until he has first called him to justice in a legal
way; and then lays down the terms under which he may proceed to
hostilities. The other less premeditated quarrels, in meetings for
drinking or business, were considered as more or less heinous, according
to the rank of the person in whose house the dispute happened, or, to
speak the language of that time, whose peace they had violated.

2d. In proportioning the pecuniary mulcts imposed by them for all, even
the highest crimes, according to the dignify of the person injured, and
to the quantity of the offence. For this purpose they classed the people
with great regularity and exactness, both in the ecclesiastic and the
secular lines, adjusting with great care the ecclesiastical to the
secular dignities; and they not only estimated each man's life according
to his quality, but they set a value upon every limb and member, down
even to teeth, hair, and nails; and these are the particulars in which
their laws are most accurate and best defined.

3d. In settling the rules and ceremonies of their oaths, their
purgations, and the whole order and process of their superstitious
justice: for by these methods they seem to have decided all
controversies.

4th. In regulating the several fraternities of Frank-pledges, by which
all the people were naturally bound to their good behavior to one
another and to their superiors; in all which they were excessively
strict, in order to supply by the severity of this police the extreme
laxity and imperfection of their laws, and the weak and precarious
authority of their kings and magistrates.

These, with some regulations for payment of tithes and Church dues, and
for the discovery and pursuit of stealers of cattle, comprise almost all
the titles deserving notice in the Saxon laws. In those laws there are
frequently to be observed particular institutions, well and prudently
framed; but there is no appearance of a regular, consistent, and stable
jurisprudence. However, it is pleasing to observe something of equity
and distinction gradually insinuating itself into these unformed
materials, and some transient flashes of light striking across the gloom
which prepared for the full day that shone out afterwards. The clergy,
who kept up a constant communication with Rome, and were in effect the
Saxon legislators, could not avoid gathering some informations from a
law which never