rA P P E N D I X I. 28l

levied in those courts and as most of thepunishments were then pecuniary, this perquisiteformed a considerable part osthe profits belongingto his office. The two thirds also, which wentto the king, made no contemptible part of thepublic revenue. Any freeholder was fined whoabsented himself thrice from these courts

As the extreme ignorance of the age madedeeds and writings very rare , the County orHundred court was the place where the mostremarkable civil transactions were finished, inorder to preserve the memory of them , andprevent all future disputes. Here testaments werepromulgated , staves manumitted , bargains of saleconcluded; and sometimes, for greater security,the most considerable of these deeds were insertedin the blank leaves of the parish Bible , whichthus became a kind of register, too sacred to befalsified. It was not unusual to add to the deedan imprecation on all such as should be guilty ofthat crime !! .

Among a people, who lived in so simple amanner as the Anglo-Saxons, the judicial poweris always of greater importance than the legisla-tive. There were few or no taxes imposed bythe states: There were few statutes enacted,and the nation was less governed by laws , thanby customs, which admitted a great latitude of

" LL. Edw. Cons. § z t. ’* LL. Ethelst. 20.

ts Iiickes, Dissert. Epift

Appendix

I.