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67 
the entire social order was included therein. Waste or public 
land of the state was the king’s land and waste land in a dis- 
trict was regarded by the territorial lord as his individual 
property. Old community rights of pasturage and the like 
came to be regarded as incorporeal rights in the land of the 
lord. In other words, in practical effect tho not in name, there 
was established by the Anglo-Saxons a feudal system. Condi- 
tions were ripe for the introduction of the feudal system in law 
as well as in practical effect. 
Status. The social life of the people in Anglo-Saxon times 
was characterized by a new status system which took the 
place of an older disappearing patriarchal system. The social 
ranks consisted of the king and thegns appointed by him ; the 
earls, or noblemen, and the thegns appointed by them; the 
ceorls, or freemen; and the theows (serfs), or non-free men — 
more slaves than villeins of later history. The ceorl was the 
typical farmer. 
Substantive Law. The ideas of law and legal procedure 
possessed by the Anglo-Saxons were very crude. The only 
social interest which they tried to protect was that in peace. 
They tried to abolish the private warfare which was the re- 
sult of vengeance and self-help. They did this as all human 
beings have done, by a scheme of social control recognizing 
legal capacities in individuals and providing means of legal 
redress. But the only antecedent rights and duties which 
they recognized were those of personal safety, family, and 
property, with the merest beginning of contracts, and all of 
these were bound and limited by the principles of the status 
system and the system of land ownership. Serfs were given 
no rights. Individuals in other classes had not emerged so 
as to be given all the same rights. The only obligations, or 
contracts, recognized were the pledge (wed) and the bail, or 
guarantee (borh). The property right included cattle (chat- 
tels), and land, bocland evidenced by charters, held by churches 
and thegns, and folkland held by freemen. Land was con- 
veyed by deeds of conveyance and by livery of seisin. The 
only public right recognized was that of the king’s peace, at 
first confined to the king’s house, but gradually extended to 
the highways, his ministers and servants, and finally to the 
whole realm. Wrongs were not divided into torts, crimes, and 
breaches of contract, but they were just wrongs. There was 
