2.  It is easy to group the Anglo-Saxon laws according to the manner of their publication.  They would fall into three divisions:  (1) laws and collections of laws promulgated by public authority; (2) statements of custom; (3) private compilations of legal rules and enactments.  To the first division belong the laws of the Kentish kings, AEthelberht, Hlothhere and Eadric, Withraed; those of Ine of Wessex, of Alfred, Edward the Elder, AEthelstan,[1] Edmund, Edgar, AEthelred and Canute; the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum and the so-called treaty between Edward and Guthrum.  The second division is formed by the convention between the English and the Welsh Dunsaetas, the law of the Northumbrian priests, the customs of the North people, the fragments of local custumals entered in Domesday Book.  The third division would consist of the collections of the so-called Pseudo-leges Canuti, the laws of Edward the Confessor, of Henry I., and the great compilation of the Quadripartitus, then of a number of short notices and extracts like the fragments on the “wedding of a wife,” on oaths, on ordeals, on the king’s peace, on rural customs (Rectitudines singularum personarum), the treatises on the reeve (gerefa) and on the judge (dema), formulae of oaths, notions as to wergeld, &c.  A fourth group might be made of the charters, as they are based on Old English private and public law and supply us with most important materials in regard to it.  Looking somewhat deeper at the sources from which Old English law was derived, we shall have to modify our classification to some extent, as the external forms of publication, although important from the point of view of historical criticism, are not sufficient standards as to the juridical character of the various kinds of material.  Direct statements of law would fall under the following heads, from the point of view of their legal origins:  i. customary rules followed by divers communities capable of formulating law; ii. enactments of authorities, especially of kings; iii. private arrangements made under recognized legal rules.  The first would comprise, besides most of the statements of custom included in the second division according to the first classification, a great many of the rules entered in collections promulgated by kings; most of the paragraphs of AEthelberht’s, Hlothhere’s, and Eadric’s and Ine’s laws, are popular legal customs that have received the stamp of royal authority by their insertion in official codes.  On the other hand, from Withraed’s and Alfred’s laws downwards, the element of enactment by central authority becomes more and more prominent.  The kings endeavour, with the help of secular and clerical witan, to introduce new rules and to break the power of long-standing customs (e.g. the precepts about the keeping of holidays, the enactments of Edmund restricting private vengeance, and the solidarity of kindreds as to feuds, and the like).  There are, however, no outward signs enabling us to distinguish conclusively between both categories of laws in the codes, nor is it possible to draw a line between permanent laws and personal ordinances of single sovereigns, as has been attempted in the case of Frankish legislation.