Alfred's laws became the laws of Edward, and the true source of English justice, in which a free and victorious people found its noblest privilege. He was the first who gave to each citizen others of the same quality to judge him; the defendant could not expect any injustice from them whose judge he himself might be, and whose security depended upon the very justice administered to their brethren. Alfred ordered that the noblemen should be judged by twelve others of the same rank; and to the plebeian he appointed eleven other citizens, under the presidency of a noble, as judges. This prerogative still exists, and till the end of the last century, no other nation had adopted the system of equality of rank of the jury and defendant; and, in fact, the defendant risks the same danger from the ignorance of the juryman, from the obstinacy of one of them, or from the artifice of an unjust prince, as in other countries, from an arbitrary judge.6 Alfred dictated this manner of judging the impeached to his Saxons, and also to the Northmen.

Like all other laws of the northern people, the punishments which Alfred imposed for offences were very mild, and but few of them extended so far as the effusion of blood.27 Rebellion, high treason, and the breach of public peace in a

burgh, were alone punished with death, and even these could be redeemed, according to the old custom of the German people, by a certain weight of gold. Seduction of a married woman was regarded in the same light as the above-mentioned offences, and as the most criminal of all, because it destroyed the most sacred bond of society, and divided those whose union was the most intimate and necessary for the hope of the future generations. The priest who committed perjury, or stained his hand with blood, or went beyond the limits of chastity, was punished by the bishops, but forced likewise to present himself before the bar of the royal judges, and pay the king an adjudged fine. Persons who were suspected of a crime were obliged to give bail by others, or be taken into custody.

The Northern pirates had given so many examples of open violence, that robbing, and seizing of goods, was a general vice spread over the whole island; but this insecurity Alfred also found means to extirpate by a remedy never before known to the most civilized nations. Alfred first divided the kingdom into shires, the boundary of each of which was fixed. Every shire was sub-divided into hundreds, which were named according to their capability of taking up weapons, and every hundred

consisted of ten housekeepers; every tithing had to give security, each one for all, and were bound all for one, that no individual should undertake anything against the laws, but appear before the judge when summoned. Nobody could obtain the protection of the law without being registered in one of the tithings; all that would not undergo this obligation were expelled that protection, and could be attacked with impunity by any one, robbed of their goods, and even of their lives. If one of the members of these tithings was suspected of a misdeed, and the whole tithing would not give security for him, he was imprisoned; and if he escaped before the warrant against him was put in execution, the tithing to which he belonged, and even the whole hundred, was forced to pay to the king a fine for this negligence. This tithing could avoid paying the fine, if all its members proved by oath their ignorance of the crime, and of the escape; but such evidence must also have been given by others, and witnessed by the neighbouring tithing; and if those would not confirm this evidence, the defaulter was forced to pay a very heavy fine. The goods of the escaped individual were seized, and if the value was not found sufficient to pay the fine, the whole tithing was obliged to make up the deficiency, and to take the responsibility of bringing the culprit before

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the judge, as soon as they were able to secure his person.28 If a traveller visited one of Alfred's subjects, he was considered during two days as a guest, and any grievance that he might commit could not be accounted to his host, provided the latter could swear that he had no knowledge of the crime imputed to his guest; but if the visitor remained three days, the landlord was answerable for him as a member of his family.

Alfred would not undertake to attack the hereditary power of his earls, which was too deeply rooted in the constitution of the state; but he weakened that of the higher nobility, by investing every county with a burgrave, named by himself, who surveyed the country, and fulfilled the same functions that the ambassadors did under the Carlovingians. The king likewise appointed a judge in every county, before whom all judicial cases were brought and settled. Those judges moderated the power of the burgraves as well as that of the earls.29

The effect of these regulations was miraculous. Shortly before that time, no one could venture on the highway without being armed, and obliged to defend himself, as the law was powerless, and unable to protect him. But all at once, a general

security reigned throughout the whole country. The traveller beheld the approach of night without terror. His gold, as well as his life, incurred no danger. The king ordered golden bracelets to be hung on trees, and the attraction of the booty tempted no one to risk the penalty of the laws; the officers of the king consequently brought back the treasures untouched.30 So wise was the kind severity of the justice which watched over innocence, that it convinced the guilty their crimes were follies.

The next labour of Alfred was to make a statement of all estates and pieces of land throughout the kingdom, with their measurement, revenues, and rent-rolls; this enormous work Alfred accomplished at Winchester, in a century backward in science, and in a comparatively very short time. William the Conqueror renewed this land-book, and posterity has profited for nearly a thousand years, by the work of the wise Alfred, to fix taxes, as well as to settle contentions.

On this statistical account of England, and the division of the country into hundreds and tithings, were based the courts of justice, which Alfred instituted in every county, in every hundred, and in every tithing. The obtaining of justice was