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THE LAWS OF THE WESTGOTHS.

be found, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Then it may be buried in the church graveyard and have right to inherit.

a. [1] The child arrives alive, then it shall be primsigned and baptized, but only once. A child takes sick, the mother is alone at home, then she shall baptize and name it. Then it may be buried in the church graveyard and has a right to inherit. A child is primsigned and not baptized, then it shall not be buried in the church graveyard, and has not right to inherit.

b. The freeholders wish to build a church, then permission shall be asked from the bishop. He shall consent. Now the church is built, then shall the giftland[2] be granted to it. A field worth half a mark and a meadow bringing twenty loads of hay and the eight part of an Eight,[3] and a part of the common pasture and houses: Mansion, outhouse, stable and barn. These the freeholders shall build, but the priest keep in order. Massrobes, chalices, chalicecloth, chasuble, priestfillet, handcloth, surplice, girdle and headcloth, these the freeholders shall furnish for the church and maintain the church itself. The bishop shall consecrate them. Then one shall go to the bishop and with him agree upon a meetingday, when the church shall be consecrated. Then the bishop shall send his men to receive headtithe[4] from all these per-

  1. ↑ The paragraphs a, b, c, are supplied from the later edition of the law. One leaf is cut out in codex A, and as Codex B. has these paragraphs, they are here inserted. See Schlyter and Otman in loco.
  2. ↑ Skötning: Giftland. Land could be given away only in the following way: The receiver's cloak was held outspread by some witnesses, and the donor cast into it a hand full of soil from the land to be given away, whereupon the receiver took the cloak with the soil upon it. Then ownership in the land was legally transferred, and the process was called skötning
  3. ↑ Attungi: Eight. One of the parts into which a village was divided.
  4. ↑ Hovoþtiundi: The large tithe; headtithe (Icelandic; hin meiri tiund). Besides the regular tax to the clergy, the church, and the paupers, which was exacted yearly from the produce of the field and the herd, another tithe was demanded in certain parts of the North, called: Hovoþtiundi, and which
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