rd the Elder, AEthelstan, Edgar, Edmund and
AEthelred. It reappears in some strength in the code of Canute, but the
latter is chiefly a recapitulation of former enactments. The system of
"compositions" or fines, paid in many cases with the help of kinsmen,
finds its natural place in the ancient, tribal period of English
history and loses its vitality later on in consequence of the growth
of central power and of the scattering of maegths. Royalty and the
Church, when they acquire the lead in social life, work out a
new penal system based on outlawry, death penalties and corporal
punishments, which make their first appearance in the legislation of
Withraed and culminate in that of AEthelred and Canute.

As regards status, the most elaborate enactments fall into the period
preceding the Danish settlements. After the treaties with the Danes,
the tendency is to simplify distinctions on the lines of an opposition
between twelvehynd-men and twyhynd-men, paving the way towards
the feudal distinction between the free and the unfree. In the
arrangements of the commonwealth the clauses treating of royal
privileges are more or less evenly distributed over all reigns, but
the systematic development of police functions, especially in regard
to responsibility for crimes, the catching of thieves, the suppression
of lawlessness, is mainly the object of 10th and 11th century
legislation. The reign of AEthelred, which witnessed the greatest
national humiliation and the greatest crime in English history, is
also marked by the most lavish expressions of religious feeling and
the most frequent appeals to morality. This sketch would, of course,
have to be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the
unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the
paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to
tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. But, imperfect as
such statistics may be, they give us at any rate some insight into the
direction of governmental legislation.

4. The next question to be approached concerns the pedigree of
Anglo-Saxon law and the latter's natural affinities. What is its
position in the legal history of Germanic nations? How far has it been
influenced by non-Germanic elements, especially by Roman and Canon
law? The oldest Anglo-Saxon codes, especially the Kentish and the
West Saxon ones, disclose a close relationship to the barbaric laws
of Lower Germany--those of Saxons, Frisians, T