Kings Peace and English Peaec-Magistracy. 23 



period, consisted in the gradual establisJivient of so-called 

 higher peaces. Certain places, times, or persons, even cer- 

 tain objects, such as the plough of the husbandman, were in a 

 manner ' sequestrated ' from the operation of the common 

 law and placed under the sanction of superior bot and wite. 

 Thus there was a special house-peace,^ a church-peace,^ a 

 forest-peace,^ a peace for the palace, even for the temporary 

 residence of the king.'* In like manner, during seed-time and 

 harvest, market days and festivals, civil moots and the gath- 

 ering of the host, a truce was declared : the clansman must 

 forego the feud or seek it at his peril. Moreover, the orphan, 

 the widow, and the priest were each shielded from violence 

 by heavy penalties. But the higher peace is especially inter- 

 esting in its relation to the king. He was its beneficiary in 

 two ways. In the double capacity of folk-leader and official 

 magistrate, not only was his personal safety and that of his 

 entire household hedged about by the strongest guaranties, 

 but the administration of the higher peaces themselves was 

 largely entrusted to him and his reeves. Later, as in Eng- 

 land with the rise of the feudal thegnship, all places, all times, 

 and all persons were gradually brought within his jurisdic- 

 tion. And thus the higher peaces, many of which were in 

 their origin exceptional and artificial, representing at once 

 the encroachment of the folk upon the clan and that of the 

 magistrate upon the folk, appear as an important — perhaps 



1 See Schmid, Glossar, 607, for references to passages in the old English laws 

 from which the house-peace may be inferred. Cf. Wilda, Strafrccht, 241-5; 

 Dahn, Deutsche Geschichte, 251. 



- A. S. ciric-frith, later, ciric-grith. Cf. ^Ethelberht, I ; /Elfred, 2, § 5 ; 

 Eadgar, II, 5; ^'Ethelred, VI, 14, VIII, i, 3, 4: Schmid, Gesetze, 2, 72, 188, 230, 

 242-4; and Schmid's Glossar, 544, 584-5. Cf. Wilda, Strafrecht, 248-53. 



^ Meyer, Institutions Jiidiciaircs, I, 42. 



* Tam longe debet esse pax regis a porta sua, ubi residens erit, a quatuor par- 

 tibus loci illius, hoc est : tria miliaria, et III quarentinae, et IX acrae latitudine, 

 et IX pedes, et IX palmae et IX grana ordei. Multus sane respectus esse debet, 

 ac multa diligentia, ne quis pacem regis infringat, maxima in ejus vicinia : Leges 

 Hen. Priini, 16: Schmid, Gesetze, 446. Cf. II)., An/iangXIl and An/iang IV, 9, 

 15, pp. 410, 384-5. 



257 



