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593 was one of the franchises usually conceded similar punishment on the thief, must be re garded as a nearer approach to law than to to the lords of townships.6 fight out their quarrels subject to a compul Infangthief long survived the Conquest, sory arbitration ending in the payment of a but the exercise of the right was put under restrictions.7 There is no record of the fixed sum, as in the wergild. The Saxon laws are full of provisions exercise of infangthief in England after the conferring this right of summary punishment reign of Edward III., except in the northern by execution by him who suffered the injury. borough of Halifax, where a judicature This is illustrated by the laws of Ina,' of grounded upon the Anglo-Saxon customs subsisted until a comparatively recent era.8 -^Ethelstan,' and even of Edward the Confes In the advance of early English jurispru sor.3 The Judicia Civitatis Lundonice* pro vides : " That no thief be spared over xii dence infangthief was succeeded by the pence, and no person over xii years whom tennannetale (in the north of England) and we learn according to folkright that he is firth-borlts (in the south of England) or frank guilty and make no denial; that we slay him pledges, under which all men were bound to and take all he has." This document also combine themselves into associations of ten, contains provisions as to following thieves, each member of which association became and provides, in the seventh rule, "that he security for the good behavior of each other who should kill a thief before other men, that member thereof, and was required to pro he be 12 pence the better for the deed and duce any one thereof charged with an offence, for the enterprise, from our common money." and on failure to so produce him, the remain This approaches very nearly to the law of ing nine were required to make good any mis infangthief, which is indeed a peculiar case chief the missing tenth had done.9 This of summary execution,5 if not of justice, and association in tens was known as a tithing,10 1 " If a thief be seized, let him perish by death, or let and the head man who managed the affairs his life be redeemed according to his wer." Again : " He .thereof was called borhs-caldor, or firthwho slays a thief must declare on oath that he slew him offending not his gild brethren." Ina, 12; Thorpe, An borge-head, also tithing-man or "capital cient Laws and Institutions of England, i., III. 2 "That no thief be spared who be taken hand-hteb- pledge." Whether the tithing was originally bende above xii years and above eight pence." Accord 1 a defensive or a police regulation is purely a ing to another law of vEthelstan it would seem the proper course to kill thieves. " If any thief or robber flee to the! matter of conjecture," as is also the fact as king, or to any church and the bishop, that he have a to whether the frank-pledge had become a term of nine days. And if he flee to an ealdorman, or an abbot, or a theane, let him have a term of three days. these plain and speedy modes of administering justice; And if anyone slay him within that term let him (the they are acts deduced from the mere exercise of the pas slayer) make bot the mund-byrd of him whom he before sions natural to man, and the law consists only in the re had fled to. And flee he to such socn (jurisdiction) as strictions by which the power of self-protection and he may flee to (take refuge in), that he be not worthy of defence were prevented from degenerating into wanton his life but as many days as we above have declared, and and unprovoked cruelty." Vol. ii, p. 211. he who after that harbors him (the thief) let him (the 6 It is thus denned in the laws of Edward the Confes harborer) be worthy of the same that the thief may be, sor : 11Justicia cognoscenti? latronis sua est, de nomine sito unless he can clear himself that he knew no guile nor si captus fuerit super terram suam." Edw. Conf., xxii; any theft in him." ^Ethel., iv., 4; Thorpe, i., 223. Thorpe, i., 452. 3 In these laws elaborate provisions are made for try 7 Palgrave, vol. i., 210. ing the question as to whether a person killed as a thief 'Id., 213. "injustc interfectus sit. et injustejucct inter latrones "; in 9 Madox, Hist. Exch.. 393; Palgrave, Comxv., i., 96. which case the body was to be taken up and reburied "sicut Christianum." Edw. Conf., xxxvi; Thorpe, i., 460. 10 A tithing was the unite of local administration repre 4 For this document see Thorpe, i., 229-243; for senting a subdivision of the hundred, and occurs at least curious and interesting comments on same see, (,'oote's as early as the time of Edgar. Edg., i, 2, 4. Romans in Britain, 394, et sea. "In some instances it was merely a personal associa 3 Sir Francis Palgrave says : " Perhaps the name of tion of ten men. See, Judicia Civitatis Lundonue, /Eth., legal procedure can scarcely be given with propriety to vi, 2, S, §1.