ANECDOTES OF FEUDAL TIMES IN ENGLAND. 157 



their own court with soc and sac, gallows and pit, toill and theme, 

 infangtheife, and outfangtheife ; all of which, except the power over 

 life and death, were enjoyed by the same class of persons, the thanes 

 and bishops, in the time of Edward the Confessor. Capital punish- 

 ments within these miniature sovereignties seem to have been intro- 

 duced with the improvements made by the Normans upon the feudal 

 institutions of the Saxons; perhaps in the reign of Henry I., who is 

 said to have been the first monarch that punished theft by the gal- 

 lows.* Unquestionably the law of the Confessor which defines the 

 powers of those bishops and thanes [barones, in the Latin translation], 

 who had their own courts and customs, t is silent on the subject of 

 capital punishments, and we know that they were interdicted by 

 William the Conqueror ;J yet we find among the pleas of the 

 county of Suffolk, in the first year of king John's reign, a claim of 

 the bishop of Ely, in opposition to Sampson, abbot of St. Edmund's 

 Bury, to the privilege of hanging within the liberties of his church, 

 in virtue of a charter which was granted by king Edgar, and con- 

 firmed by Edward the Confessor, by William the Conqueror, Henry 

 II., and other monarchs. 



In this case, the abbot of Bury complains against Sir Osbert de 

 Wechesam, a knight of the bishop of Ely, that he unjustly erected 

 a gallows and made executions in the manor of Hecham, within the 

 liberty of St. Edmund, in violation of the franchise, which, the court 

 roll states, appertained to the house from the time of Edward the 

 Conqueror. || Another complaint to the same effect is preferred 

 against Heinfrid de Criketott, who pleads that he holds as of the 

 honour of Boulogne ; and that, as from the conquest, he is entitled 

 in his land to raise the gallows, and do judgment upon thieves ; for 

 his father caused a thief to be hanged, first calling in the bailiff of 

 the abbot, who had the right of being present at the judgment. 

 Heinfridus further pleads that during his own minority, Osbert de 

 Glanville, having the wardship of the land, caused a thief to be hung 

 as in right of the appendant franchise ; and that he himself had 

 done the same thing after requiring the abbot's bailiff to attend the 

 execution. The place of execution is called in these pleadings 

 qualm -stowe,H and Sir Francis Palgrave regards it as a proof of the 

 tenacity with which the people still adhered to the ancient language 

 of the country.** 



The origin of the punishment by drowning may, perhaps, be 

 traced to a custom of the ancient Germans, by whom, according to 



* Roger de Hoveden, p. 471. 



f" Cap. 2l, de baronibus, qui suas habent curias, &c. 



J LI. Will. I. cap. 7- This clemency was extended to cases of high treason. 

 William, Count d'Eu, having, by judicial combat, been convicted of a con- 

 spiracy against the king, was punished by deprivation of sight. Chron. 

 Saxon, ad An. 1096. 



Placitorum Abbreviatio, 1 Joh. Suffolk, p. 22. 



Rotuli Curiae Regis, vol. ii. Introd. p. x. p. 6 and 10. Placit. Abr. ubi cit. 



IT Cwealm stowe, patibuli locus. Somner. 



** Rot. Cur. Introd. p. xi. With submission to the learned commissioner, 



