302 HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

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Appendix to separate the ecclesiastical from the civil juristI- didion , was that law of Edgar, by which alldisputes among the clergy were ordered to beearned before the bishop 'l he penances

were then very severe, but as a man could buythem off with money, or might substitute othcisto perform them , they lay east upon the rich Ic7 .

Warners, With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons we can fay little, but that they were ingeneral a rude, uncultivated people, ignorant ofletters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamedto submission under law and government, addictedto intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their bestquality was their military courage , winch yetwas not supported by discipline or conduct, d heirwant of fidelity to the prince , or to any trustreposed in them , appears strongly in the historyof their later period; and their want of humanityin all their history. Even the Norman historians,notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their.own country, speak of them as barbarians, whenthey mention the invasion made upon them bythe duke of Normandy I he conquest putthe people in a situation of receiving slowly,from abroad , the rudiments of science and culti-vation , and of correcting their rough and licen-tious manners.

105 LL.Ælf. 5 37. apud Wilkins , p. 43. Wilkins ,

f. 83. 107 Ibid. p. 96, 97. Spell. Cone. p. 473.

Gtil. Put. p. 2C3.