with true ones and afterwards drest up and brought upon the stage Very many Nations sayes Trithemius as well in Europe as in Asia pretend they took their original from the Trojans to whom I have thought good to lend so much faith as they shall be able to perswade me of truth by sufficient testimony They are frivolous things which they bring concerning their own Nobility and Antiquity having a mind as it were openly to boast as if there had been no people in Europe before the destruction of Troy and as if there had been no one among the Trojans themselves of ignoble birth He who made the Alphabetical Index to Jeoffry of Monmouth who was Bishop of St. Asaph too as he is printed and put forth by Ascensius propt up the Authors credit upon this account that as he sayes he makes no mention any where in his Book of the Franks by reason forsooth that all those things almost which he has written of were done and past before the Franks arrival in France This was a slip surely more than of memory Go to Jeoffry himself and in his Nineteenth Chapter of his first Book you meet with the Franks in the time of Brennus and Belinus among the Senones a people of France a gross misreckoning of I know not how many hundred years For the Franks are not known to have taken up their quarters on this side the River Rhine till some Centuries of years after Christs Incarnation For howbeit by Poetick licence and Rhetorical figure Aeneas be said to have come to the Lavinian Shores which had not that name till some time after yet it were much better that both in Verse and Prose those things which appertain to History should be expressed according to that form of Ovid where at the burning of Rhemus his Funeral Pile he sayes Tunc Juvenes nondum facti flevere Quirites that is The young men then not yet Quirites made Wept as the body on the Pile they laid And at this rate Jeoffry might and ought to have made his Translation if he would have been a faithful Interpreter But as to our Brutus whence the Britans Saxo whence the Saxons Bruno whence those of Brunswick Freso whence those of Friseland and Bato whence the Batavians had their rise and name take notice what Pontus Heuterus observes as others have done before him Songs or Ballads sayes he and Rhymes made in an unlearned Age with ease obtruded falshoods for truths upon simple people or mingling falsehoods with truths imposed upon them For three or four hundred years ago there was nothing that our Ancestors heard with greater glee than that they were descended from the adulterous Trojans from Alexander of Macedonia the Overthrower of Kingdoms from that Manqueller Hercules of Greece or from some other disturber of the World And indeed that is too true which he sayes Mensur aque fictis Crescit auditis aliquid novus adjicit auctor which in plain English speaks this sence Thus Stories nothing in the telling lose The next Relater adding still to th' News But I will not inlarge To clear these points aright Antiquaries who are at see-saw about them will perhaps eternally be at loss like the Hebrews in their mysterious debates for want of some Elias to come and resolve their doubts CHAP. VII What the Trojan Laws were which Brutus brought in That concerning the Eldest Sons Inheriting the whole Estate confuted In the first times there were no Positive Laws yet mention made of them in some very ancient Authors notwithstanding a remark of some ancient Writers to the contrary WEll Suppose we grant there was such a Person ever in the World as Brutus He made Laws they say and those taken out of the Trojan Laws but what I pray were those Trojan Laws themselves There is one I know well enough they speak of concerning the Prerogative of the eldest Sons by which they inherited the whole Right and Estate of their deceased Father Herodotus writes it of Hector Son and Heir to King Priam and Jeoffry mentions it but did this Law cross the Sea with Brutus into Brittany How then came it that the Kingdom was divided betwixt the three Brothers Locrinus Camber and Albanactus betwixt the two Ferrix and Porrix betwixt Brennus and Belinus and the like of some others How came it that in a Parliament of Henry the Eighth provision was made that the Free-holds of Wales should not thence-forward pass according to that custom which they call Gavelkind And anciently if I be not mistaken most Inheritances were parted among the Children as we find in Hesiods works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. We had already parted the Estate And to the same purpose many like passages there are in old Poets and in Holy Writ But as I said what are those Trojan Laws Perhaps the same with those by which Nephelococcygia the City of the Birds in Aristophanes or as we use to say Vtopia is Governed The gravest Writers do acknowledge that those most ancient times were for the most part free from positive Laws The people so says Justin were held by no Laws The Pleasures and Resolves of their Princes past for Laws or were instead of Laws Natural Equity like the Lesbian Rule in Aristotle being adapted applied and fitted to the variety of emergent quarrels aâ—â— strifes ordered over-ruled and decided all Controversies And indeed at the beginning of the Roman State as Pomponius writes the people resolved to live without any certain Law or Right and all things were governed by the hand and power of the King For they were but at a little distance from the Golden Age when vindice nullo Sponte suâ sine lege fidem rectumque colebant That is to say when People did not grudge To be plain honest without Law or Judge That which the Heresie of the Chiliasts heretofore affirmed concerning the Sabbatick or seventh Millenary or thousand years of the World And those Shepherds or Governors of the people to whom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Into whose hand Jove trusts his Laws and Scepter for Command did Govern them by the guidance of vertue and of those Laws which the Platonicks call the Laws of second Venus Not out of the ambition of Rule as St. Austin hath it but out of duty of Counsel nor out of a domineering pride but out of a provident tenderness Do you think the Trojans had any other Laws Only except the worship of their Gods and those things which belong to Religion It was duty says Seneca not dignity to Reign and Govern And an Eye and a Scepter among the Aegyptians were the absolute Hieroglyphicks of Kings What that there is not so much as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Law to be met with in those old Poets Orpheus Musaeus or Homer who was about an hundred and fifty years after the destruction of Troy
is a Fury others called Themis the Goddess of Justice To be brief and plain the Furies that is the Avenging Goddesses sit upon the skirts of the wicked but the Eumenides that is the kind Goddesses as Sophocles interprets them for that they were so called properly without the Figure of Antiphrasis or contradiction he is our Author do attend the good and such as are blameless and faultless and poor suppliants Nay moreover Plutarch writes in a Poetick strain that Alcmaeon fled from these Eumenides meaning in very deed that he made his escape from the Civil Magistrates In a word the whole business we have been aiming at Orpheus compriseth in two Verses of that Hymn he has made upon those Goddesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in a short Paraphrase speaks thus But ye with eye of Justice and a face Of Majesty survey all humane race Judges commission'd to all time and place See here plainly out of the most ancient Divine among the Heathens how Judges and the Dispensers of Law pass under the notion of these Venerable Goddesses and it was a thing of custom to term the Right of the Infernal Powers as well as the Doctrine of the Heavenly ones a thing Holy and Sacred What hinders then I pray but that one may guess that the Name and Title and Attributes or Characters of the Semnothei sprang forth and flowed from hence to wit from the Semnai theai or Venerable Goddesses Homer in his Poems calls Kings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is persons bred and nourished by Jove yea the Eternal and Sacred Scriptures themselvs do more than once call Judges by that most holy name Elohim that is Gods The judgement is Gods not Mans and as Munster remarks out of Rabbi Kimchi whatsoever thing Scripture designs to magnifie or express with hight it subjoyns to it the name of God God as Plutarch has it out of Plato who in his Attick styl◠imitates our Moses hath set himself out as a pattern of the Good the dreadful syllables of whose very not-to-be-uttered Name though we take no notice of the Cabalists art do strike move and twitch the ears of Mortals and one while when thorough ignorance they straggle out of the way do bring them back into the path or track of Justice another while when they are stopt up with prejudice and are overcast with gloomy darkness do with a stupendous dismal and continual trembling shake the poor wretches and put them into Ague-sits Nor let that be any hindrance that so splendid and so manly a name is taken from the weaker Sex to wit the Goddesses Let us more especially have to do with the Britans as those amongst whom are those choice and singular Altars not any where else to be met with in the whole World with this Inscription DEIS MATRIBUS To the Mother-Goddesses Concerning these Mother-Goddesses that excellent Learned Man that I may hint it by the by confesses he could with all his search find out nothing but if such a mean person as I may have leave What if one should imagine that those Goddesses whom Pausanias in his Attick stories calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were the same as these Mother Goddesses for so those Names import The Mother of the Gods is a Title well known wherewith not only Berecynthia but also Juno Cybele Tellus Ceres and other Shee s among Mythologists are celebrated and made famous Be this if you will a thing by the by and out of the way as he tells us No great Wit ever pleased without a pardon Relying upon that the Readers Pardon I mean I undertook this Job whatever it is and upon confidence of that I come back to the business CHAP. III. One Law of Samothes out of Basingstoke concerning the reckoning of Time by Nights Bodinus his censure of Astrologers for otherwise computing their Planetary Hours A brief account of some of Samothes his Successors Magus Sarron Druis from whom the Druids c. WE do not any where meet with any Law enacted by Samothes his authority Yet one only one concerning the account of times Basingstoke the Count Palatine a very modern Historian attributes to him He defined sayes he the spaces or intervals of all time not by the number of dayes but of nights the same thing saith Caesar of the Gauls and Tacitus of the Germans and be observed birth-dayes and the commencements of months and years in that order that the day should come after the night Truth is the Britans do at this time observe that fashion which is most ancient and highly agreeable to Nature And the Evening and the Morning was the first day and so on sayes the Hebrew Writer whose Countrey-men the Jews also followed this custom The Peripateticks i. e. the followers of Aristotle do also at this rate reckon Privation in the number of their three Principles and hereupon John Bodin adventures to censure the common Astrologers that they according to the course of the Planets as they order it and repeat it over and over begin their unequal hours from the rising rather than the setting of the Sun They write that after this Samothes there came in play Magus Sarran Druis Bardus and others more than a good many in order of succession Sarron was not addicted to make Laws 't is Stephanus Forcatulus helps us to this but to compose them to put them into order and to recommend them to practice as one who reduced those Laws which his Grand-father Samothes and afterward his Father Magus had made into one Volume and with severe Menaces gave order for the keeping of them From Druis or Druides they will have the Druids so called a sort of Philosophers so much famed and talked of in Caesar Pliny and others believe it who list for me The whole business of the Druids at present I put off till Caesar's times CHAP. IV. K. Phranicus 900. Years after Samothes being to reside in Pannonia intrusts the Druids with the Government In the mean time Brutus Aeneas his Grand-son arrives and is owned King by the Britans and builds Troynovant i. e. London Dunvallo Molmutius 600. years after is King and makes Laws concerning Sanctuaries Roads or High-wayes and Plow-lands K. Belin his Son confirms those Laws and casts up four great Cause-wayes through the Island A further account of Molmutius ABout Nine hundred years after Samothes King Phranicus take it from the British story and upon the credit of our Jeoffry intrusts the Druids with the management of affairs whilst he himself resided in Pannonia or Hungary In the mean time Brutus the Son of Sylvius Posthumus King of the Latines and Grand-child to Aeneas for Servius Honoratus in his Comment upon Virgil makes Sylvius to be the Son of Aeneas not of Ascanius being happily arrived by Shipping with Corinus one of the chief of his company and coming to land at Totnes in Devonshire the Britans
as Josephus against Appio Plutarch and several modern Writers have remarked I confess if one well consider it this remark of theirs is not very accurate For we very often read in Homer and Hesiod the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Laws and in both of them the Goddess Eunomia from the same Theme as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which being interpreted is But they by legal methods bear the sway I' th' City fam'd for Beauties which is a passage in Homers hymn to Mother Tellus and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Law of Song which Musicians might not transgress is mentioned in his hymn to Apollo Nay great Plato one beyond all exception has left it in writing that Talus who had the management of the Cretan Common-wealth committed to him together with Rhadamanthus the Son of Jupiter by King Minos that he did thrice every year go the circuit through the whole Island which was the first Country as Polyhistor tells us that joyned the practice of Laws with the study of Letters and kept Assizes giving Judgment according to Laws engraven in brass I say nothing of Phoroneus King of the Argives or of Nomio the Arcadian and in good time leave this Subject I could wish I might peruse Jupiters Register wherein he has recorded humane affairs I could wish that the censure of some breathing Library and living study which might have power over the Ancients as we read in Eunapius that Longinus had or that the memory of some Aethalides might help us sufficiently to clear and make out the truth Hence our next passage is to the Classick Writers of the Latin style and story CHAP. VIII An Account of the DRUIDS out of Caesar's Commentaries whence they were so called Their determining in point of Law and passing Sentence in case of Crime Their Award binds all parties Their way of Excommunicating or Outlawing They have a Chief over them How he is chosen Their Priviledge and Immunity CAjus Julius Caesar was the first of the Romans who has committed to writing the Religious Rites the Laws and the Philosophy of the DRVIDS Their name is of a doubtful origination by no means were they so called from that Druis or Druides we meet with in Berosus But whether they were so termed from a Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifies an Oak in that they performed none of their devotions without oaken leaves as Pliny and those that follow him are of opinion or from the Dutch True-wise as Goropius Becanus will have it or from Trutin a word which with the ancient Germans signified God as Paulus Merula quotes it out of the Gospel of Othfred though in the Angels salutation in the Magnificat in Zachariahs Song and elsewhere Trutin rather denotes Lord than God and see whether there does not lye somewhat of the Druid in the name of St. Truien among the people of Liege some having exploded St. Drudo whencesoever they had their name these Gown men among the Gauls I and the Britans too were the Interpreters and Guardians of the Laws The discipline of these Druids was first found in Britany and so far as it regards the Civil Court we shall faithfully subjoyn it out of the forenamed Caesar. 1. They order matters concerning all controversie publick and private So in the Laws of the twelve Tables at the same rate the knowledg of cases of precedents of interpreting was in the Colledge of Pontiffs or High Priests and such plainly our Druids were If any ill prank had been played if murder committed if there were a controversie about Inheritance about bounds of Land these were the men that determined it these amerced rewards and punishments 2. If any private person or body of men do not stand to their award they excommunicate him that is forbid him to come to sacrifice which among them is the most grievous punishment 3. Those who are thus excommunicated are accounted wicked and ungodly wretches every body goes out of their way and shuns their company and conversation for fear of getting any harm by contagion Neither have they the benefit of the Law when they desire it nor is any respect shown to them 4. The Druids have one over them who has the chiefest authority amongst them 5. When he dies if there be any one that is eminent above the rest he succeeds in place But if there be several of equal merit one is chosen by majority of Votes 6. The Druids were wont to be excused from personal attendance in War nor did they pay taxes with the rest they were freed from Military employ and had an immunity of all things The Levites among the Hebrews who were the most ancient Priests in the world injoyed the same priviledge CHAP. IX The menage of their Schools without Writing On other occasions they might use the Greek Letters as Caesar saith yet not have the language The Greek Letters then were others than what they are now These borrowed from the Gauls as those from the Phoenicians Ceregy-Drudion or the Druids Stones in Wales This Place of Caesar's suspected Lipsius his Judgment of the whole Book 7. UPon the account of that priviledge they had in their Schools which were most of them in Britany a great confluence of youth They are said to learn without Book says Caesar a great number of Verses Therefore some of them spend twenty years in the discipline Nor do they judge it meet to commit such things to writing whereas generally in all other whether publick affairs or private accompts they make use of Greek letters What Greek letters so we read Greek ones Why Marseilles a City of France which was a Greek Colony of the Phocians had made the Gauls such lovers of Greeks that as Strabo the Geographer tells us they writ their very Contracts and Covenants Bargains and Agreements in Greek The fore-mentioned Julius Caesar also writes that there were Tablets found in the Camp of the Switzers made up of Greek letters But for all that I would not have any one from hence rashly to gather that the Greek Language was in use to that Age and People or to these Philosophers and Lawyers They made use of Greek letters therefore they had the Greek Tongue too this truly were a pitiful consequence At this rate the Targum or Chaldee Paraphrase as Paulus Merula has it and Goropius before him would consist of the Hebrew Language because 't is Printed in Hebrew Characters And the like may be said of the New Testament in Syriack done in Hebrew letters What that those very Letters of the Greeks in Caesars time and as we now write them are rather Gallick as borrowed from the Gauls than Greek He was acquainted with those Greek letters but did not yet know the Gallick ones which learned men do think the Greeks took for their Copy after the Phoenician letters which were
fancy of the Clerks or Notaries However the last words which are the close of these Grants and Patents are not to be slighted These we may see in that of Cedwalla King of the South-Saxons made to Theodore Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in the year 687. thus For a further confirmation of my grant I Cedwalla have laid a Turf of the Land aforesaid upon the holy Altar of my Saviour And with my own hand being ignorant of Letters have set down and expressed the mark or sign of the Holy Cross. Concerning Withred and a Turf of Land in Kent Camden has the same thing And King Ethelulph is said to have offered his Patent or Deed of Gift on the Altar of the holy Apostle St Peter For a conclusion I know no reason why I may not set underneath the Verses of an old Poet wherein he hath comprised the instrument or Grant of founding an Abby which Ethelbald King of the Mercians gave to Kenulph Abbot of Crowland Verses I say but such as were made without Apollo's consent or knowledge Istum Kenulphum si quis vexaverit Anglus Rex condemno mihi cuncta catella sua Inde meis Monachis de damnis omnibus ultrà Vsque satisfaciat carcere clausus erit Adsunt ante Deum testes hujus dationis Anglorum proceres Pontificesque mei Sanctus Guthlacus Confessor Anachorita Hic jacet in cujus auribus ista loquor Oret pro nobis sanctissimus iste Sacerdos Ad tumbam cujus haec mea dona dedi Which in Rhyme dogrel will run much after this hobling rate If any English vex this Kenulph shall I King condemn to me his Chattels all Thenceforth until my Monks he satisfie For damages in Prison he shall lye Witnesses of this Gift here in Gods sight Are English Peers and Prelates of my Right Saint Guthlac Confessor and Anchoret Lies here in whose Ears these words I speak yet May he pray for us that most holy Priest At whose Tomb these my Gifts I have addrest Thus they closed their Donations or Grants thus we our Remarks of the Saxons being now to pass to the Normans THE SECOND BOOK OF THE ENGLISH JANUS From the NORMAN Conquest to the Death of King Henry II. CHAP. I. William the Conquerour 's Title He bestows Lands upon his followers and brings Bishops and Abbots under Military Service An account of the old English Laws called Merchenlage Danelage and Westsaxen-lage He is prevailed upon by the Barons to govern according to King Edward's Laws and at S. Albans takes his Oath so to do Yet some new Laws were added to those old ones WILLIAM Duke of Normandy upon pretence of a double Right both that of Blood inasmuch as Emme the Mother of Edward the Confessor was Daughter to Richard the first Duke of the Normans and withal that of Adoption having in Battel worsted Harald the Son of Godwin Earl of Kent obtain'd a large Inheritance and took possession of the Royal Government over all England After his Inauguration he liberally bestowed the Lands and Estates of the English upon his fellow-soldiers that little which remained so saith Matthew Paris he put under the yoke of a perpetual servitude Upon which account some while since the coming in of the Normans there was not in England except the King himself any one who held Land by right of Free-hold as they term it since in sooth one may well call all others to a man only Lords in trust of what they had as those who by swearing fealty and doing homage did perpetually own and acknowledge a Superior Lord of whom they held and by whom they were invested into their Estates All Bishopricks and Abbacies which held Baronies and so far forth had freedom from all Secular service the fore-cited Matthew is my Author he brought them under Military service enrolling every Bishoprick and Abbacy according to his own pleasure how many Souldiers he would have each of them find him and his Successors in time of Hostility or War Having thus according to this model ordered the Agrarian Law for the division and settlement of Lands he resolved to govern his Subjects we have it from Gervase of Tilbury by Laws and Ordinances in writing to which purpose hè proposed also the English Laws according to their Tripartite or threefold distinction that is to say Merchenlage Danlage and Westsaxenlage Merchenlage that is the Law of the Mercians which was in force in the Counties of Glocester Worcester Hereford Warwick Oxford Chester Salop and Stafford Danlage that is the Law of the Danes which bore sway in Yorkshire Derby Nottingham Leicester Lincoln Northampton Bedford Buckingham Hertford Essex Middlesex Norfolk Suffolk Cambridge Huntingdon Westsaxenlage that is the Law of the West-Saxons to which all the rest of the thirty two Counties which are all that Malmesbury reckons up in Ethelred's time did belong to wit Kent Sussex Surrey Berks Southampton Winton Somerset Dorset and Devon Some of these English Laws he disliked and laid aside others he approved of and added to them some from beyond Sea out of Neustria he means Normandy which they did of old term Neustria corruptly instead of Westrich as being the more Western Kingdom of the Franks and given by Charles the Simple to Rollo for his Daughter Gilla her portion such of them as seemed most effectual for the preserving of the Kingdoms peace This saith he of Tilbury Now this is no rare thing among Writers for them to devise that William the Conqueror brought in as it were a clear new face of Laws to all intents and purposes 'T is true this must be acknowledg'd that he did make some new ones part whereof you may see in Lambard's Archaeonomia and part of them here subjoyned but so however that they take their denomination from the English rather than from the Normans although one may truly say according to what Lawyers dispute that the English Empire and Government was overthrown by him That he did more especially affect the Laws of the Danes which were not much unlike to those of the Norwegians to whom William was by his Grand-father allied in blood I read in the Annals of Roger Hoveden And that he openly declared that he would rule by them at hearing of which all the great men of the Countrey who had enacted the English Laws were presently struck into dumps and did unanimously petition him That he would permit them to have their own Laws and ancient Customs in which their Fathers had lived and they themselves had been born and bred up in forasmuch as it would be very hard for them to take up Laws that they knew not and to give judgement according to them But the King appearing unwilling and uneasie to be moved they at length prosecuted their purpose beseeching him that for the Soul of King Edward who had after his death given up the Crown and Kingdom to him and whose the Laws were and not any others that were strangers
came in his way as he was passing by holding up their Ploughshares in token that their Husbandry was running to decay for they were put to a world of trouble upon occasion of the provisions which they carried from their own quarters through several parts of the Kingdom Thereupon the King being moved with their complaints did by the resolved advice of his Lords appoint throughout the Kingdom such persons as he knew were for their prudence and discretion fit for the service These persons going about and that they might believe their own eyes taking a view of the several Lands having made an estimate of the provisions which were paid out of them they reduced it into a sum of pence But for the total sum which arose out of all the Lands in one County they ordered that the Sheriff of that County should be bound to the Exchequer Adding this withal that he should pay it at the Scale Now the manner of paying the tryal of the weight and of the metal by Chymical operation the Melter or Coyner and the surveyor of the Mint are more largely handled and explained by my self in some other work of mine 13. That he might the more firmly retain Kent to himself that being accounted as it were the Key of England 't is the famous Mr. Camden tells the Story he set a Constable over Dover-Castle and made the same person Warden of the Cinque Ports according to the old usage of the Romans Those are Hastings Dover Hith Rumney and Sandwich to which are joyned Winchelsey and Rye as Principals and other little Towns as Members 14. To put the last hand to William I add out of the Archives this Law not to be accounted among the last or least of his William by the Grace of God King of the English to all Counts or Earls Viscounts or Sheriffs and to all French born and English men who have Lands in the Bishoprick of Remigius greeting This Remigius was the first who translated the Episcopal See from Dorchester to Lincoln Be it known unto you all and the rest of my Liege Subjects who abide in England that I by the common advice of my Arch-Bishops and the rest of the Bishops and Abbots and all the Princes of my Kingdom have thought fit to order the amendment of the Episcopal Laws which have been down to my time in the Kingdom of the Angles not well nor according to the Precepts of the holy Canons ordained or administred Wherefore I do command and by my Royal Authority strictly charge that no Bishop or Arch-deacon do henceforth hold Pleas in the Hundred concerning Episcopal Laws nor bring any cause which belongs to the Government of Souls i.e. to spiritual affairs to the judgment of secular men but that whosoever according to the Episcopal Laws shall for what cause or fault soever be summoned shall come to a place which the Bishop shall chuse and name for this purpose and there make answer concerning his cause and do right to God and his Bishop not according to the Hundred but according to the Canons and Episcopal Laws For in the time of the Saxon Empire there were wont to be present at those Country Meetings the Hundred Courts an Alderman and a Bishop the one for Spirituals the other for Temporals as appears by King Edgar's Laws CHAP. V. William Rufus succeeds Annats now paid to the King Why claimed by the Pope No one to go out of the Land without leave Hunting of Deer made Felony AFter the death of William his second Son WILLIAM sirnamed RVFVS succeeded in his room All Justice of Laws as Florentius of Worcester tells us was now husht in silence and Causes being put under a Vacation without hearing money alone bore sway among the great ones Ipsaque majestas auro corrupta jacebat that is And Majesty it self being brib'd with gold Lay as a prostitute expos'd to th' bold 15. The right or duty of First-Fruits or as they are commonly called the Annats which our Kings claimed from vacant Abbies and Bishopricks Polydor Virgil will have to have had its first original from Rufus Now the Popes of Rome laid claim to them anciently a sort of Tribute which upon what right it was grounded the Council of Basil will inform us and by what opinion and resolution of Divines and Lawyers confirmed Francis Duarenus in his Sacred Offices of the Church will instruct us 'T is certain that Chronologers make mention that at his death the Bishopricks of Canterbury Winchester and Salisbury and twelve Monasteries beside being without Prelates and Abbots paid in their Revenues to the Exchequer 16. He forbad by publick Edict or Proclamation sayes the same Author that any one should go out of England without his leave and Passport We read that he forbad Anselm the Arch-Bishop that he should not go to wait upon Pope Vrban but that he comprehended all Subjects whatsoever in this his Royal order I confess I have not met with any where in my reading but in Polydor. 17. He did so severely forbid hunting of Deer saith William of Malmesbury that it was Felony and a hanging matter to have taken a Stag or Buck. CHAP. VI. Henry the First why called Beauclerk His Letters of Repeal An Order for the Relief of Lands What a Hereot was Of the Marriage of the Kings Homagers Daughter c. Of an Orphans Marriage Of the Widows Dowry Of other Homagers the like Coynage-money remitted Of the disposal of Estates The Goods of those that dye Intestate now and long since in the Churches Jurisdiction as also the business of Wills Of Forfeitures Of Misdemeanors Of Forests Of the Fee de Hauberk King Edward's Law restored WIlliam who had by direful Fates been shewn to the World was followed by his Brother Henry who for his singular Learning which was to him instead of a Royal Name was called Beau-clerk He took care of the Common-wealth by amending and making good what had slipt far aside from the bounds of Justice and by softning with wholsome remedies those new unheard of and most grievous injuries which Ralph afterwards Bishop of Durham being Lord Chief Justice of the whole Kingdom plagued the people with He sends Letters of Repeal to the High Sheriffs to the intent that the Citizens and people might enjoy their liberty and free rights again See here a Copy of them as they are set down in Matthew Paris HENRY by the Grace of God King of England to Hugh of Bockland High Sheriff and to all his Liege people as well French as English in Herefordshire Greeting Know ye that I through the mercy of God and by the common advice of the Barons of the Kingdom of England have been crowned King And because the Kingdom was opprest with unjust exactions I out of regard to God and that love which I bear towards you all do make the holy Church of God free so that I will neither sell it nor will I put it to farm
your skew looks fore-speak my harvest in the blade I shall readily and willingly yield the conquest to him that fairly gets it and rightfully corrects me But whoever thou art of that sort of men Per meos fines aprica rura Lenis incedas abeasque parvis Aequus alumnis O're my bounds and sunny plain Take a gentle walk or twain Then depart with friendly mind To me and my Lambkins kind You that are candid and courteous know that 't is a very hard matter to brighten things that are grown out of use to furnish things obscure with light to set off things that are disdained with credit to make things doubtful pass for probable to assign to every thing it s own nature and every thing to its own nature and that it is a very brave and gallant thing as he sayes for those that have not attained their design yet to have endeavoured it when the Will as we say is accepted for the Deed. But I know too that every Cone or point of vision in the Opticks differs from a right angle and I know how odious a thing a Train or solemn Procession is in the publick Games Therefore dear Reader I bid thee heartily farewel and with a fortunate endeavour fetch out hence what may make for thy turn Why do I delay all this while to let thee in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Go thy wayes in o'Gods name Laudamus veteres sed nostris utimur annis Mos tamen est aeque dignus uterque coli We praise old times but make use of our own And yet 't is fit they both alike be known Go in and welcome heartily and be not unkind to thy Entertainer From the Inner Temple London Decemb. 25. 1610. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In laudem dignissimi Authoris politioris literaturae candidati Carmen CUm Jovis effoeti Pallas foret orta cerebro Vagitus teneros virgo patrima dedit Accurrit tacitéque novam subducere prolem Tentat abstrusis abdere Juno locis Jupiter ingenuam solerti indagine natam Quaeritat celeri permeat astra pede Stat cerebrique tuam cernens Seldene Minervam In natae amplexus irruit ille tuae Atque suam credit parilique ab imagine formae Illa fuit suavis suavis illa fuit Lisque foret nisi quae quondam Lucina fuisset Musarum testis turba novena fuit Quam cognata Jovis tua casta Minerva Minervae est Cum tantum fallax lusit imago Deum ALIUD DUm tuus ambiguâ Janus facieque biformi Respicit antiqua posteriora videt Archivos Themidis canos monumentaque legum Vindicat à veteri semi-sopita situ Hinc duplex te Jane manet veterane corona Gratia canitie posteritate decus Gulielmus Bakerus Oxon. ASTRAEAE BRIT ULtima caelicolûm terras Astraea reliquit Tu tamen alma redi terras Astraea revise Astraea alma redi tuis Britannis Et diva alma fave tuis Britannis Et diva alma fove tuos Britannos Et diva alma regas tuos Britannos Cantemus tibi sic tui Britanni Foelices nimium ô tui Britanni Tu tandem alma redis divum postrema Britannis Ultima coelicolûm terras Astraea revisit Alma redi sacro redolent altaria fumo Et tibi sacratis ignibus Alma redi Alma redi posuit Liber hic primordia juris Anglos quo poteris tu regere Alma redi Alma redi tibi templa struit Seldenus at aram Qui tibi nil potuit sanctius Alma redi E. Heyward In Epigraphen Libri Carmen QUisnam Iò mussat Posuisti Enyo Arma jam doctos Iber haùt Batavos Marte turbat Foedere jam Britannus Continet Orbem Clusium Audax quis reserat latentem Falleris Diae Themidis recludo Intima Haec portâ meliùs feratâ Pandit Eanus I. S. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS BOOK I. CHAP. I. THE counterfeit Berosus with the Monk that put him forth both censured The Story of Samothes the first Celtick King The bounds of Celtica From Samothes say they the Britans and Gauls were called Samothei For which Diogenes Laertius is falsly quoted the word in him being Semnothei page 1. CHAP. II. An Account of the Semnothei Why so called the opinion of H. Stephen and of the Author Old Heroes and Philosophers went by the names of Demy-gods The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Venerable Goddesses the same as Eumenides dispensers of Justice And by Plutarch and Orpheus they are set for Civil Magistrates Judges in Scripture so called Elohim i. e. Gods These Semnai theai the same as Deae Matres in an old British Inscription p. 3 CHAP. III. One Law of Samothes out of Basingstoke concerning the reckoning of Time by Nights Bodinus his censure of Astrologers for otherwise computing their Planetary Hours A brief account of some of Samothes his Successors Magus Sarron Druis from whom the Druids c. p. 5 CHAP. IV. K. Phranicus 900. Years after Samothes being to reside in Pannonia intrusts the Druids with the Government In the mean time Brutus Aeneas his Grand-son arrives and is owned King by the Britans and builds Tâ—oynovant i. e. London Dunvallo Molmutius 600. years after is King and makes Laws concerning Sanctuaries Roads or High-wayes and Plow-lands K. Belin his Son confirms those Laws and casts up four great Cause-wayes through the Island A further account of Molmutius p. 6 CHAP. V. A brief Account of Q. Regent Martia and of Merchenlage whether so called from her or from the Mercians Annius again censured for a Forger and his Berosus for a Fabulous Writer p. 7 CHAP. VI. The story of Brutus canvast and taken to be a Poetick Fiction of the Bards Jeoffry of Monmouth's credit called in question Antiquaries at a loss in their judgements of these frivolous stories p. 8 CHAP. VII What the Trojan Laws were which Brutus brought in That concerning the Eldest Sons Inheriting the whole Estate confuted In the first times there were no Positive Laws yet mention made of them in some very ancient Authors notwithstanding a remark of some ancient Writers to the contrary p. 10 CHAP. VIII An Account of the DRUIDS out of Caesar's Commentaries whence they were so called Their determining in point of Law and passing Sentence in case of Crime Their Award binds all parties Their way of Excommunicating or Outlawing They have a Chief over them How he is chosen Their Priviledge and Immunity p. 12 CHAP. IX The menage of their Schools without Writing On other occasions they might use the Greek Letters as Caesar saith yet not have the language The Greek Letters then were others than what they are now These borrowed from the Gauls as those from the Phoenicians Ceregy-Drudion or the Druids Stones in Wales This Place of Caesar's suspected Lipsius his Judgement of
conscience with my suffrage to assist as far as I could that Sex which is so great and comfortable an importance to mankind so sweet a refreshment amidst our sharpest toils and the vicissitudes of life and in a word is the dearest gift that Dame Nature could bestow upon Man But let us now return to Caesar's Gauls again CHAP. XIII Their putting themselves under protection by going into great mens service Their Coins of money and their weighing of it Some sorts of flesh not lawful to be eaten by them 19. VEry many of them when they are opprest with Debt or with great Taxes or with the injurious oppression of great men put themselves out to service to the Nobles Over such they have the same Right or Authority as Masters have over their Servants or Slaves These things following are expresly related also of the Britans themselves 20. They use Brass Coin or Rings some read it Plates of Iron proportion'd to a certain weight instead of money But saith Solinus a more modern Historian they dislike and disallow of Markets or Fairs or Money they give and take Commodities by way of Barter Camden is of opinion that the custom of Coining Money came in along with the Romans among the Cattieuchlani that is the people of Buckinghamshire Bedfordshire and Hartfordshire He takes notice out of William the Conqueror's Book of Rates or Dooms-Day Book which is seasonable to mention upon this Head of Coins that as amongst the old Romans so amongst our Ancestors money was weighed as Gervase of Tilbury also tells us and so told out and paid down Now they paid Customs to the Romans and for this purpose they had Coins stamped and marked with various shapes of living Creatures and Vegetables which ever and anon are digged up out of the ground And we read in a very ancient Chronicle of the Monastery of Abendon which had two Kings Cissa and Ina for its founders that at the laying the first foundations there were found very old Coins engraven with the Pictures of Devils and Satyrs One may very well suppose them to be British Coins 21. They do not think it lawful to taste of the flesh of Hare or Hen or Goose and yet they keep these Creatures for pleasure and divertisement sake Why they forbore only Hare and Hen and Goose I am not able to give the reason I perceive something of Pythagoras and something of the Jewish Discipline mixt For that Philosopher of Samos abstained from the eating of Flesh not in general from all but with a certain choice from that of some particular Creatures CHAP. XIV Community of Wives among the Britans used formerly by other Nations also Chalcondylas his mistake from our Civil Custom of Saluting A rebuke of the foolish humour of Jealousie 22. THey have ten or twelve of them Wives in common amongst them and especially Brothers with Brothers and Fathers with their Sons but what children are born of such Mothers they are fathered upon them by whom they were first lain with when they were Maids O villany and strange confusion of the rights of Nature Dii meliorae piis erroremque hostibus istum which in Christian English speaks thus Good God! For th' pious better things devise Such Ill as this I wish not t' Enemies However let not this Platonick community of Wives be more reproach to the Britans than that promiscuous Copulation which was used by the Thuscans and before Cecrops his time who for appointing Marriage that is joyning one Man and one Woman together was termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. as one may say Two-shaped by the Athenians as Theopompus Suidas and Athenaeus report it was to them Besides Eusebius in his Evangelical Preparation writes that our people for the most part were contented with one single Marriage Did not may one think Chalcondylas mistake Caesar's meaning who a hundred years ago and upwards setting himself to write History at Athens and peradventure over-carelesly drawing ancient Customs down to the last Age ventured to affirm of the Britans his Contemporaries That when any one upon invitation enters the house of a friend the Custom is that he first lye with his friends Wife and after that he is kindly entertained Or did that officious kiss the Earnest of welcome which is so freely admitted by our Women from strangers and guests which some take particular notice of as the custom of our Countrey put a trick upon Chalcondylas and bring him into that mistake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes Theocritus of old that is In empty kisses there is swéet delight And Qui vult cubare pangit saltem suavium sayes the Servant in Plautus He that would a woman win With a kiss he doth begin And that other fellow Quaero deinde illecebram stupri principio eam suavium posco And Et jam illud non placet principium de osculo sayes jealous Amphitruo to his wife Alcumena And Agesilaus mistrusting his wanton Genius refused the buss or salute of a handsome beautiful youth For as he sayes Parva leves capiunt animos that is Small matters kindle the desire And a loose Spirit 's soon on fire This our Grecian knew well enough and perchance thought of that unlucky hint Si non caetera sumpsit Haec quoque quae sumpsit perdere dignus erat Moreover that great Philosopher of Lawyers Baldus hath set it down for a rule that the Fathers consent and betrothal is ratified and made good by the Daughters admitting the Wooer to kiss her Which point of Law it would be very ridiculous to imagine should concern us with whom both Maids and married Women do easily afford and civilly too them that salute them a kiss not such as Catullus speaks of Billing like Doves hard Busses or wanton Smacks but slight modest chaste ones and such as Sisters give to Brothers These civilities when omitted are alwayes signs of Clownishness when afforded seldom are accounted signs of Whorishness Nor do the Husbands in this case unless it be perhaps some Horn-mad-Cuckold with a wrinkled Forehead shake their Bull-feathers or so much as mistrust any thing as upon jealousie of this custom It may be Chalcondylas being a little pur-blind saw these passages as it were through a grated Lattice and made ill use of his mistake I mean whilst he compared our Britans who upon a Matrimonial confidence trust their Mates honesty with the jealous Italians Venetians Spaniards and even his own Countrey-men Which people it is a wonder to me they should so warily with so much diligence and mistrust set pinfolds cunning Spies and close attendance Locks and Keys and Bars and Bolts upon their Madonna 's Chastity most commonly in my conscience all to no purpose when that which he has said is as good as Oracle though a wanton one Quod licet ingratum est quod non licet acriùs urit Ferreus est siquis quod
one to wear Arms before the City or Community approve of him as sufficient for it Then in the Council it self either some one of the Princes or chief persons or the Father of the young man or some Kinsman of his in token of respect give him a Shield and a Partisan This with them stands for the Ceremony of the Gown this the first honour of youth arriving at manhood before this be done they seem but a part of the Family but after this is over they are a part of the Common-wealth The right ancient pattern of dubbing Knights if any where else to be found Julius Caesar sayes almost the very same thing of the Gauls They do not suffer their Children to come in publick to them till they be come to Age that they be able to undergo the Duties of War 28. A remarkable Nobleness of descent or the high merits of their Fathers procure even to young Lads the dignity and esteem of a Prince For as the Philosopher sayes We owe this regard to Vertues that we respect them not only whilst present but also when they are taken away out of our sight and in the Wise mans account The glory of Parents is the honour of their Children 29. The Wife doth not bring the Husband a Portion but the Husband gives the Wife a Dowry Contrary to what the Roman Law saith That custom is still in use with the English as Morgangheb in other places CHAP. XX. Their severe punishments of Adultery by maiming some parts of the body The reason of it given by Bracton The like practised by Danes and Normans 30. THe Husband if his Wife playes the Whore cuts off her hair strips her naked and turns her out of doors in presence of her Kindred and drives her through the Streets lashing or beating her as she goes along They were formerly in this Northern part of the World most severe punishers of Adultery and they had such Laws as were ipsis Marti Venerique timenda that is such as would Put Mars and Venus in a trance Of fear amidst their dalliance King Knute ordered That a Wife who took another Passenger on board her than her Husband and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oft times i th' nights away she hies And into other harbour flyes Well speed thee and thine fair Venus nor do I willingly bring these ill tidings to thy tender Ducklings should have her Nose and ears cut off I remember Antinous in Homer threatens Irus with the chopping off his Nose Ears and Privities and Vlysses inflicts that very punishment upon his Goat-herd Melanthius for his having been too officious in his pimping attendance upon the Gallants that haunted the house in his absence How any one should deserve this penalty which so disfigures Nature I do not yet sufficiently understand Heraclides Ponticus informs us That Law-makers were wont to maim that part especially which committed the misdemeanour In testimony of this he mentions Tytius his Liver as the Shop and Work-house of Lust and it were no hard matter to bring in other more pertinent instances and Pereant partes quae nocuerc saith some Poet The parts that did the hurt Let them e'en suffer for 't However it was not Melanthius his Ears and by no means his Nose that offended no nor the good Wives neither that commits the fact as Martial the merry Wag tells a certain Husband Quis tibi persuasit nares abscindere moecho Non hâc peccata est parte marite tibi that is with modesty to render it What made thee angry man to cut The Nose of him that went to rut 'T was not that part that did th' offence Therefore to punish that what sense But who doth not see that a Woman hath no other parts of her body so lyable to maiming or cutting off Both those parts make much for the setting her off nor are there any others in the whole outward frame of the Microcosm which being cut off do either more disparage beauty or withal less afflict the animal vertue as they call it by which life is maintain'd Now for those who of old time did unluckily that is without the favour of those Heathen Gods Prema and Mutinus to whose service they were so addicted offer violence to untainted chastity the loss of members did await the lust of such persons that there might be member for member they are the words of Henry Bracton a very ancient Writer of our Law and they are clear testimonies that the English have practised the Law of like for like quia virgo cùm corrumpitur membrum amittit ideò corruptor puniatur in eo in quo deliquit oculos igitur amittat propter aspectum decoris quo virginem concupivit amittat testiculos qui calorem stupri induxerunt So long ago Aut linguam aut oculos aut quae tibi membra pudorem Abstulerant ferro rapiam sayes Progne to her Sister Philomele speaking of the filthy Villain Tereus who had ravished her I 'le cut out his eyes or tongue Or those parts which did thée the wrong and Plautus in his Play called Paenulus Sy. Facio quod manifesto moechi haud ferme solent Mi. Ruid id est Sy. Refero vasa salva I remember I have read that Jeoffry de Millers a Nobleman of Norfolk for having inticed the Daughter of John Briton to an Assignation and ingaged her with venereal pledges being betrayed and trepann'd by the Baggage underwent this execution and suffered besides whatsoever a Fathers fury in such a case would prompt him to do But withal that King Henry the third was grievously offended at it dis-inherited Briton banished him and gave order by Proclamation that no one should presume unless it were in his Wives case to do the like But these passages are of later date and since the Normans time and from them unless you will bring hither that which we meet with in Alured's Law concerning a Man and a Maid-servant From whence we slide back again to Tacitus CHAP. XXI The manner of Inheriting among them Of deadly Feuds Of Wergild or Head-mony for Murder The Nature of Country-Tenures and Knights Fees 31. EVery ones Children are their Heirs and Successors and there was no Will to be Nor was it lawful with us down to our Grandfathers time to dispose of Country Farms or Estates by Will unless it were in some Burroughs that had a peculiar Right and Priviledge of their own If there be no Children then says he the next of kin shall inherit Brethren or Uncles by the Fathers or Mothers side Those of the ascending Line are excluded from Inheritances and here appears the preference of the Fathers side A Law at this very day usual with the English 32. To undertake the Enmities rather than the Friendships whether of ones Father or Kinsman is more necessary Capital enmities which they call Deadly Feuds are well known to our Northern
and other like cases Nay and if Leland an Eye-witness may be believed our great Prince Arthur had his Seal also which he saith he saw in the Church of Westminster with this very inscription PATRITIUS ARTHURIUS BRITANNIAE GALLIAE GERMANIAE DACIAE IMPERATOR That is The Right Noble ARTHUR Emperor of Britanny France Germany and Transylvania But that the Saxons had this from the Normans is a thing out of all question Their Grants or Letters Patents signed with Crosses and subscribed with Witnesses names do give an undoubted credit and assurance to what I have said John Ross informs us that Henry Beauclerk was the first that made use of one of Wax and Matthew of Canterbury that Edward the first did first hang it at the bottom of his Royal Writings by way of Label whereas before his Predecessors fastned it to the left side Such a writing of Henry the first in favour of Anselm the last Author makes mention of and such an one of William's Duke of the Normans though a very short one and very small written Brian Twine in his Apology for the Antiquity of the famous University of Oxford the great Study and support of England and my ever highly honoured Mother saith he had seen in the Library of the Right Honourable my Lord Lumley But let a circumcised Jew or who else will for me believe that story concerning the first Seal of Wax and the first fastning of it to the Writing A great many waxen ones of the French Peers that I may say something of those in wax and Golden ones of their Kings to wit betwixt the years 600 and 700 we meet with fashioned like Scutcheons or Coats of Arms in those Patterns or Copies which Francis de Rosieres has in his first Tome of the Pedigree or Blazonry of the Dukes of Lorain set down by way of Preface Nor was it possible that the Normans should not have that in use which had been so anciently practised by the French Let me add this out of the ancient Register of Abendon That Richard Earl of Chester who flourished in the time of Henry the first ordered to sign a certain Writing with the Seal of his Mother Ermentrude seeing that being not girt with a Soldiers Belt i. e. not yet made Knight all sorts of Letters directed by him were inclosed with his Mothers Seal How what is that I hear Had the Knightly dignity and Order the singular priviledge as it was once at Rome to wear Gold-Rings For Rings as 't is related out of Ateius Capito were especially designed and ingraven for Seals Let Phoebus who knows all things out of his Oracle tell us For â—ervants or Slaves so says Justus Lipsius and remarks it from those that had been dug up in Holland and common Soldiers were allowed iron ones to sign or to seal with which therefore Flavius Vopiscus calls annulos sigillaricios i. e. seal-Rings and so your ordinary Masters of Families had such with a Key hanging at it to seal and lock up their provision and utensils But saith Ateius of the ancient time Neither was it lawful to have more than one Ring nor for any one to have one neither but for Freemen whom alone trust might become which is preserved under Seal and therefore the Servants of a Family had not the Right and Priviledge of Rings I come home to our selves now CHAP. III. Other ways of granting and conveying Estates by a Sword c. particularly by a Horn. Godwin's trick to get Boseham of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Pleadings in French The French Language and Hand when came in fashion Coverfeu-Laws against taking of Deer against Murder against Rape 3. AT first many Lands and Estates were collated or bestowed by bare word of mouth without Writing or Charter only with the Lords Sword or Helmet or a Horn or a Cup and very many Tenements with a Spur with a Currycomb with a Bow and some with an Arrow But these things were in the beginning of the Norman Reign in after times this fashion was altered says Ingulph I and these things were before the Normans Government Let King Edgar his Staff cut in the middle and given to Glastenbury Abbey for a testimony of his Grant be also here for a testimony And our Antiquary has it of Pusey in Berkshire That those who go by the name of Pusey do still hold by a Horn which heretofore had been bestowed upon their Ancestors by Knute the Danish King In like manner to the same purpose an old Book tells this story That one Vlphus the Son of Toraldus turned aside into York and filled the Horn that he was used to drink out of with Wine and before the Altar upon his bended knees drinking it gave away to God and to St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles all his Lands and Revenues Which Horn of his saith Camden we have been told was kept or reserved down to our Fathers memory We may see the conveyance of Estate how easie it was in those days and clear from the punctilio's of Law and withal how free from the captious malice of those petty-foggers who would intangle Titles and find flaws in them and from the swelling Bundles and Rolls of Parchments now in use But commend me to Godwin Earl of Kent who was to use Hegesander's word too great a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 catcher at Syllables and as the Comedian says more shifting than a Potters wheel Give me saith he to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Boseham The Arch-Bishop admiring what it was he would be at in that question saith I give you Boseham He straight upon the confidence of this deceit without any more ado entred upon an Estate of the Arch Bishops of that name on the Sea-coasts of Sussex as if it had been his own by Inheritance And with the testimony of his people about him spoke of the Arch-Bishop before the King as the donor of it and quietly enjoyed it Those things I spoke of before to wit of Sword Horn c. smell of that way of investing into Fees which we meet with in Obertus de Orto but are very unlike to that solemn ceremony which is from ancient time even still used in conveying of an Estate and delivering possession wherein a green Turf or the bough of a growing Tree is required 4. They did so much abhor the English tongue 't is the Abbot of Crowland saith it that the Laws of the Land and the Statutes of the English Kings were handled or pleaded in the French language For till the thirty sixth year of Edward the third all businesses of Law were pleaded in French That also in Schools the Rudiments of Grammatical Institution were delivered to Boys in French and not in English Also that the English way and manner of Writing was laid aside and the French mode was made use of in all Charters or Instruments and Books Indeed it was such a fault to
is called Cambro-Britannia that is Welsh Britanny and Scotland possest by the Scots is in like manner called Scoto-Britannia that is Scotch-Britanny which now together with England since the Union of the two Kingdoms goes under the name of Great Britain In the Author's PREFACE The Guardian of my Threshold So Limentinus among the Romans was the God of the Threshold qui limentis i. e. liminibus praeest but it may be taken for the Officer of the Gate the Porter who gives admission to strangers In a different Character Accordingly in the Latin the Author's Citations are printed in Italick which because they are so frequent I thought fit rather to notifie by a distinction as usual in the Margin thus Intercidona Pilumnus Deverra These were Heathen Deities to whom they attributed the Care of their Children whom else they thought Silvanus might like Oberon King of the Fairies surprize or do some other mischief to In the FIRST BOOK CHAP. 1. Pag. 2. lin 23. Among the Celts and Gauls Who are reckoned for one and the same people as for instance those Gauls who removed into the Lesser Asia mixing with the Greeks were called Gallo-Graeci but by the Greeks were styled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence by contraction I suppose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 L. 41. Bellagines that is By-Laws From By that is a Village Town or City and Lagen which in Gothish is a Law so that it signifies such Laws as Corporations are govern'd by The Scots call them Burlaws that is Borough-Laws So that Bellagines is put for Bilagines or Burlagines This kind of Laws obtains in Courts Leet and Courts Baron and in other occasions where the people of the place make their own Laws CHAP. II. Pag. 4. l. 7. Adrastia Rhamnusia Nemesis Which is all but Nemesis the Goddess of Revenge called Adrastria from King Adrastus who first built her a Temple and Rhamnusia from Rhamnus a Village in the Athenian Territory where she was worshipped L. 42. Elohim that is Gods And so Judges are properly called according to the original notation of the word whose Root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alah though in Hebrew it signifie to curse yet in the Arabick Language a descendent of the Hebrew it betokens to judge Thus 't is said in the Psalms God standeth in the Congregation of the Gods and I have said Ye are Gods c. L. 45. It subjoins to it the name of God To wit that Name of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 El which signifies a mighty God In this sense the Cedars of God are lofty stately Cedars and by Moses his being fair to God is meant that he was exceeding fair Pag. 5. lin 18. Not only Berecynthia but also Juno Cybele Why Cybele is the very same Goddess who was called Berecynthia from Berecynthus a Hill of Phrygia as also Cybelus was another where she was worshipped And she had several such Names given her from the places of her worship as Dindymene Pessinuntia Idaea Phrygia This then was a slip of our worthy Author's memory or his haste CHAP. III. Pag. 5. lin 34. Not by the number of dayes but of nights Thus in our common reckoning we say a Sennight that is seven nights septinoctium for what in Latin they say septimana seven mornings and a fortnight that is fourteen nights Again for Sundayes and Holy-dayes the Evening which concludes the fore-going day is said to be their Eve that is Evening And the Grecians agree with us in setting the night before the day in that they call the natural day which is the space of twenty four hours comprehending day and night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Night-day not Day-night CHAP. IV. Pag. 6. lin 22. King Phranicus It is so ordinary a matter for Historians when they treat of things at great distance of time to devise Fables of their own or take them up from others that I doubt not but this Phranicus was designed to give name to France whereas it was so called from the Franks who came to plant there out of Franconia a Countrey of Germany called East-France L. 29. With Corinus one of the chief of his company From whom Cornwall had its name formerly called in Latin Corinia or Cornavia say some now Cornubia And possibly if that were so Corinium also or Cirencester a Town in Glocestershire and Corinus too the River Churne that runs by it owe their appellations to the same Noble person L. 31. New Troy that is London Called also Troynovant and the people about it called Trinobantes or Trinovantes from whom also the City it self was styled Augusta Trinobantum that is the Royal Seat of the New Trojans L. 40. King Belin. Who gave name to Billinsgate that is Belin's Gate as King Lud to Ludgate Pag. 8. lin 39. Eumerus Messenius Some such fabulous Writer as our Sir John Mandevil who tells us of People and Countreys that are no where to be found in the World CHAP. VI. Pag. 9. lin 19. In the time of Brennus and Belinus The first of these was General of the Gauls who were called Senones and going into Italy with them sackt Rome There he built the City Verona called by his Name Brennona as he had done Brennoburgum now Brandenburg in Germany From his prowess and famed Exploits it is supposed that the Britans or Welsh do to this day call a King Brennin Of the other viz. Belinus some mention hath been made already CHAP. VII Pag. 10. lin 24. Locrinus Camber and Albanactus From the first of these three Brethren to wit Locrinus it is said that the Welsh call England Lhoegr that falling to the eldest Sons share from the second Camber that a Welsh-man is named Cumra and the Countrey Cambria and from the third Albanactus that Scotland or at least good part of it retains the term of Albania a title still belonging to the King of Britain's second Brother the Duke of York Though for my part for this last name of Albanactus I am somewhat of opinion that it might be devised by some smattering Monk purposely in favour of the Trojan Story as much as to say in a mungrel word Alba 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 King of Alba a City of Italy built by one of Aeneas his Sons L. 29. Gavelkind From the Saxon gafel or gafol a Debt or Tribute and cyn or kynd the Kindred or Children or as Mr. Lambard gif eal cyn i. e. given to all who are next of Kin or as Vorstegan give all kind i. e. give to each Child his part An ancient custom of the Saxons whereby the Fathers Estate was equally divided amongst his Sons as it is still amongst the Daughters if there be no Sons It obtains still in several places especially in Kent by the concessions of the Conqueror Pag. 11. lin 22. The Laws of second Venus Not having Plato by me nor any other means to inform my self better I imagine that by the first Venus they mean the force of Lust and Beauty which doth so naturally
altered being taken for the best Chattle that the Tenant hath at the hour of his death due to the Lord by custom be it Horse Ox c. That Hereot and Relief do not signifie the same thing appears by this that they are both often sound to be paid out of one and the same Tenure and again that the heir alway succeeds into the Estate upon the payment of the Relief but not alwayes upon the payment of the Hereot Lin. 42. In French is called a Relief From the Verb Relever to raise again and take up the Estate which had faln into the Lords hand by the death of the Ancestor It is a summ of money which the new Homager when he is come to age payes to the Lord for his admission or at his entrance into the estate Whence by the old Civilians 't is called Introitus and in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This summ was moderately set wherein it differed from Ransom which was much more severe The Kings rates upon his Homagers were thus An Earls heir was to give an hundred Pounds a Barons an hundred Marks a Knights an hundred Shillings at most and those of lesser estate less according to the ancient custom of their Tenures as Spelman quotes it out of the Charter of Henry the Third Pag. 61. lin 11. Of the greater Uavasors They were a sort of Gentlemen next in degree to the Barons They did not hold immediately of the King but of some Duke Marquess or Earl And those that held from them again were called Valvasini or the lesser Vavasors There is little certainty what their Offices or Priviledges were or indeed whence they were so called whether qu. ad valvas stantes or valvae assidentes for their sitting or standing at their Lords door if those of that quality did so as some would have it or that they kept the doors or entrances of the Kingdom against the enemies as Spelman sayes or whether from Vassalâ—i as the Feudists derive the name from that inferiour Tenure they had mediately from the King by his great Lords which seems the more likely because these greater Vavasors who did so hold are sometimes termed Valvasores regii and Vassi dominici that is the Kings Vassals Lin. 27. Her Dowry and right of Marriage In the Latin it is dotem suam maritagium Now Dos is otherwise taken in the English than in the Roman Laws not for that which the man receives with his Wife at marriage a Portion but for that which the Woman hath left her by her Husband at his death a Dowry And Maritagium is that which is given to a Man with his Wife so that 't is the same as Dos among the Romans saith Spelman But this is too general I think that the man should be obliged to return at his death all to his Wife that he had with her beside leaving her a Dowry I am therefore rather inclined to Cowell who tells us Maritagium signifies Land bestowed in marriage which it seems by this Law was to return to the Wife if her Husband dyed before her The word hath another sense also which doth not belong to this place being sometime taken for that which Wards were to pay to the Lord for his leave and consent that they might marry themselves which if they did against his consent it was called Forfeiture of marriage Lin. 35. The common Duty of Money or Coinage So I render the word Monetagium For it appears that in ancient times the Kings of England had Mints in most of the Countreys and Cities of this Realm See Cowell in the word Moniers For which priviledge 't is likely they paid some duty to the chief place of the Mint Thus in Doomâ—sday we read as Spelman quotes it that in the City Winecestre every Monyer paid twenty shillings to London and the reason given pro cuneis monetae accipiendis for having Stamps or Coins of Money For from this Latin word Cuneus which our Lawyers have turned into Cuna from whence the Verb Cunare comes our English word Coyn. Now it is more than probable that the Officers of the Chief Mint might by their exactions upon the inferiour Mints give occasion for the making of this Law Lin. 42. Or Children or Parents By Parent here we are to understand not a Father or Mother but a Cousin one a-kin as the word signifies in French and as it is used in our Laws And indeed the Latin word it self began to have that sense put upon it in vulgar speech toward the declension of the Empire as Lampridius informs us Pag. 62. lin 21. A pawn in the scarcity of his money That is if he were not able to pay his forfeit in specie i. e. to lay down the money he was to give security by a pawn of some of his Goods or Chattels See Cowell in the word Gage This in Latin is called Vadium a pawn or pledge from Vas vadis a surety Hence Invadiare to pawn or ingage a thing by way of security till a debt be paid Lin. 23. Nor shall he make amends From the French amende in our Law-Latin emenda which differs from a Fine or mulct in this that the Fine was given to the Judge but Amends was to be made to the Party aggriev'd Now there were three sorts of this Amende the Greater which was like a full Forfeiture the Mid-one at reasonable terms and the Least or Lowest which was like a gentle Amercement This distinction will help to explain the meaning of this Law L. 30. Per fée de Hauberke This in Latin is called Feudum Hauberticum i. e. Loricatum sayes Hotoman from the French word Haubert that is a Coat of Mail when a Vassal holds Land of the Lord on this condition that when he is called he be ready to attend his Lord with a Coat of Mail or compleat Armour on Now Haubert as Spelman tells us properly signifies a High Lord or Baron from Haut or hault high and Ber the same as Baro a Man or Baron And because these great Lords were obliged by their place and service to wait upon the King in his Wars on Horse-back with compleat Armour and particularly with a Coat of Mail on hence it came sayes he that the Coat of Mail it self was also called Haubert though he doth afterward acknowledge that the word is extended to all other Vassals who are under that kind of Tenure But then at last he inclines to think that the true ancient writing of the word is Hauberk not Haubert as it were Hautberg i. e. the chief or principal piece of Armour and Berg he will have to signifie Armour as he makes out in some of its compounds Bainberg Armour for the Legs and Halsberg Armour for the Neck and Breast and derives it from the Saxon Beorgan i. e. to arm to defend Add to this saith he that the French themselves and we from them call it an Haubergeon as it were Haubergium Lin. 33. 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