The Quaint Laws of Howell Dda. through the gate without a tail." Indeed a good deal more space seems to have been given to the Porter's perquisites than to his duties. Only one other of the eleven is worth particular mention, and that is the Watch man, to whom the law allowed " the eyes of the animals slaughtered in the palace." Whether or not these were supposed to assist him in his vigil I am unable to say. The thirty-five officials thus disposed of, the first book of the Howellian Code comes to a close with a few random laws more or less connected with the Court. One of these laws ordains that there are three things which the King is not allowed to share with anyone else, viz., " his treasures, his hawk, and his thief." What the duties of this latter functionary were is not stated. I mentioned early in this article that the Queen might claim saraad for the violation of her protection. This protection feature should be explained before I pass on to the consideration of books two and three. It appears that each person connected with the Court had the power to give temporary asylum, such protection being limited by the holder's rank and position. Thus if an offender enjoyed the protection of the Page, the protection lasted " from the time one goes to get a burden of straw to put under the King, and, upon his return, make his bed, and spread the clothes thereon at night, until he shall take them off on the morrow, to convey away an offender with out pursuit." Or if his protection was that of the Huntsman, it was "to convey him so far that the sound of his horn can scarcely be heard." The Falconer's was specified as being "as far as he shall fly his hawk at a bird"; and the Mead-brewer's "from the time he shall begin to make a vat of mead, until he shall tie the covering over it." The Church's right of sanctuary is dealt with at some length. The offender under its protection was allowed only " to walk about within the churchyard and the burial
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ground." If he wcntoutside these boundaries he rendered himself open to the grasp of an outraged law. A graveyard is certainly not a very cheerful stamping ground, but a confinement there may have had a benefi cial effect upon the culprit's morals by caus ing him to reflect upon his iniquities. We now come to book the second, which, as I stated before, deals chiefly with the laws concerning women. The first clause reads rather curiously : it provides that " if a woman be given in marriage, she is to abide by her ' agweddi ' (her dower) unto the end of the seventh year, and if there be three nights wanting of the seventh current year, and they separate, let them share into two portions everything belong ing to them." Then lest the division of their property under such circumstances should lead to troublesome dispute, the law proceeds to divide it for them. It gives "the swine to the husband and the sheep to the wife; if there be only one kind, they are to be shared, and if sheep and goats, the sheep to the husband and the goats to the wife." Continuing it apportions their house hold goods and chattels in like manner, except however that the wife seems to get the lion's share. " The clothes that are over them belong to the wife; the clothes that arc under them belong to the husband, until he marries again, and after he marries the clothes are to be given up to the wife; and if another wife sleeps upon the clothes, let her pay ' wyneb-worth,' " —-that is, face value, — " to the other." Of the kitchen utensils the wife was to have all save one pail, one dish, and the drinking vessels. These latter went to the husband, but whether or not that he might put them to certain obvious uses, and so drown his troubles, is not stated. But while the woman seems to have got the better of it in the opening clauses, in clause seventeen she is treated quite rigidly : "If a woman be given to a man, and her property specified, and the whole of the property had ex
