32 George E. Hoxvard, 



ship-representatives, togetlier with all lords of land within 

 the district, and having equal authority to declare folk- 

 right in all cases, civil or criminal. Judgments were usually- 

 rendered in each by a committee of the suitors, called the 

 "twelve senior thegns." The sheriff was the peace magis- 

 ■trate of the shire, exercising authority as the king's appointed 

 agent ; the ealdorman commanded the fyrd ; while the tith- 

 ingman and hundredman, as ministerial officers of the smaller 

 communities, were the forerunners of the petty and high con- 

 stables of later times. Without doubt, these started the 

 "hue and cry," and led in the pursuit of the peace breaker. 

 But the people themselves were largely entrusted with police 

 administration ; and as the kingdom grew and the population 

 increased, special regulations for the direction of their action 

 began to appear. 



One of the earliest of these preserved in the written codes 

 is the law of ^thelstan (925-940) requiring that each land- 

 less (lordless) man shall find a surety who shall be responsi- 

 ble for his conduct.^ A decree of Eadmund (940-946), quaint 

 and almost pathetic in its tone, reads: "Also I thank God 

 and you all that you have stood by me well, and for the peace 

 which we now have in respect to theft ; likewise I trust in 

 you that you will render all the more aid in this matter ; as 

 it is more needful for us all that it (the peace) should be 

 maintained." 2 Here the people are themselves still the 

 keepers of the peace. 



A law of Eadgar provides, in case of any violation of the 

 peace (neod), that the hundredman shall notify the tithing- 

 man, and then all are to go forth in search of the malefactor.^ 

 Another throws light on the great publicity of old English 

 life, where everything was done openly, and communal claims 

 encroached largely upon that which now is left to the dis- 

 cretion of the individual. This law establishes "witnesses of 

 bargains " in every borough and hundred, a kind of notaries, 



^ .Ethelstan, II, 2: Schmid, Gesetze, 132-3. 

 2 Eadmund, II, 5 : Schmid, Gesetze, 1 78-9. 

 ^ Eadgar, I, 2: Schmid, Gesetze, 182. 

 266 



