1 8 George E. Hcnvard, 



recognition of her sanction of the remedial action of the clan, 

 demands that a portion shall come into her hands. This is 

 the wite of the Saxon laws/ called also frediun^ from ^' frith, 

 peace, and baujiuDi, from its proclamation {hannaii).'' ^ The 

 wite is not the state's share in the composition. It is its fee, 

 the direct counterpart of the two talents of the Homeric pro- 

 cedure and the sacramentum of the Twelve Tables. It is a 

 survival, in fact, of the price of arbitration.'^ 



Anglia, see Schmid, Gesetze, Anliajig VII, 394-99, and Glossar, 675; Thorpe, 

 Ancient Laws, I, 186-91, and Index. In general, on the old English compositions, 

 see Schmid, Glossar, ?A fyht-wite, wer-gild, wite, etc.; Kemble, Saxons, \, Th"]— 

 88; Forsyth, Trial by yury, 48-50, 52, 61 ; Lea, Superstition and Force, 13- 

 20; Freeman, Comp. Pol., 271-78; Konrad Maurer, Krit. Ueb., II, 30 ff., Ill, 

 26 ff.; Davoud-Oghlou, Histoire de la Legislation des anciens Germains, II, 294- 

 98, 344-54; Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, 124, 13S, 144, 166-7, -79) Wilda, 

 Strafrecht, 319, 386 ff.; Leo, Rectititdines, 180 ff. ; Glasson, Histoire du Droit et 

 des Listitutions de L''Angelterre, I, 304 ff 



1 For wite, see Schmid, Glossar, 679. The wite was similar to the Danish 

 lahslit : Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, 280-81. 



2 Anglo-Saxon_/;-?V/;, cognate with Old High Q^xrazxi fridu. Middle High Ger- 

 man vride. Modern Gexmnn friede, medieval Latiny>-/(/«^ ox fredits : see Schade, 

 Altdeutsches IVorterbuch, I, 224; Kemble, Saxons, I, 270, 7tote ; Maine, Ancient 

 Laiv, 365; Grimm, RechtsaltertJmnier, 657; Schmid, Glossar, 584. 



3 From Anglo-Saxon bannan, to proclaim or summon : Schade, Altdeutsches 

 Worterbuch, I, 39; Kemble, Saxons, I, 270. According to Sohm, Reichs- und 

 Gerichtsverfassung, 107 ff., the bannus is to be carefully distinguished on the one 

 hand from the fredus, and on the other from the faidus or blood-money. The 

 bannus is the penalty for the breach of the peace imposed by the authority of the 

 magistrate — Amtsgezvalt ; the fredus is the penalty paid to the state for a breach 

 of the people's peace — of Volksrecht. The bannus is thus the counterpart of the 

 entire composition, which consists of faidus and fredus, not of the fredus alone. 

 But with the development of magisterial authority the bannus absorbs the fredus 

 — it enters into the system of composition, and both are comprehended by the 

 later term Gewedde. Thus Sohm, in effect, recognizes two stages in the evolution 

 of the public peace : the folkspeace, for the violation of which the fredus is paid; 

 and the king's (magistrate's) peace, for the violation of which the bannus is ex- 

 aoted. Cf. Miillenhoff's Glossary, in Waitz, Das alte Recht, 282; Meyer, Institu- 

 tions Judiciaires, I, 41 ff. ; Wilda, Strafrecht, 319; Walter, Deutsche Rechtsge- 

 schichte, II, 381-4. 



* Wite, German JVette, a bet, suggests the very essence of the Legis Actio 

 Sacramenti. 



The general term in old English law for the composition paid to the aggrieved 

 is bat ; that portion of the bot paid for minor breaches of the law or the peace — 

 those of the first class, perhaps — was inund, peace-money in the narrow sense; 



252 



