ch as are
committed, and to prevent their giving abusive language to each other;
and the fine which they engage to pay for this last offence is a measure
of honey.

[A] LL. Edw. Conf. Sect. viii. apad Ingulph.

[B] Dissert. Epist. p. 21.

It is not to be doubted but a confederacy of this kind must have been a
great source of friendship and attachment, when men lived in perpetual
danger from enemies, robbers, and oppressors, and received protection
chiefly from their personal valor, and from the assistance of their
friends and patrons. As animosities were then more violent, connections
were also more intimate, whether voluntary or derived from blood: the
most remote degree of propinquity was regarded; an indelible memory of
benefits was preserved; severe vengeance was taken for injuries, both
from a point of honor and as the best means of future security; and the
civil union being weak, many private engagements were contracted, in
order to supply its place, and to procure men that safety, which the
laws and their own innocence were not alone able to insure to them.

On the whole, notwithstanding the seeming liberty, or rather
licentiousness, of the Anglo-Saxons, the great body, even of the free
citizens, in those ages, really enjoyed much less true liberty than
where the execution of the laws is the most severe, and where subjects
are reduced to the strictest subordination and dependence on the
civil magistrate. The reason is derived from the excess itself of that
liberty. Men must guard themselves at any price against insults and
injuries; and where they receive not protection from the laws and
magistrates, they will seek it by submission to superiors, and by
herding in some private confederacy, which acts under the direction of a
powerful leader. And thus all anarchy is the immediate cause of tyranny,
if not over the state, at least over many of the individuals.

Security was provided by the Saxon laws to all members of the
wittenagemot, both in going and returning, "except they were notorious
thieves and robbers."

The German Saxons, as the other nations of that continent, were divided
into three ranks of men--the noble, the free, and the slaves.[A] This
distinction they brought over with them into Britain.

[A] Nithard. Hist. lib. iv.

The nobles were called thanes; and were of two kinds, the king's thanes
and lesser thanes. The latter seem to have been dependent on the former,
and to have re