formulation and application of folk-right were in the 10th and 11th centuries the shire-moots, while the witan of the realm generally placed themselves on the higher ground of State expediency, although occasionally using folk-right ideas.  The older law of real property, of succession, of contracts, the customary tariffs of fines, were mainly regulated by folk-right; the reeves employed by the king and great men were supposed to take care of local and rural affairs according to folk-right.  The law had to be declared and applied by the people itself in its communities, while the spokesmen of the people were neither democratic majorities nor individual experts, but a few leading men—­the twelve eldest thanes or some similar quorum.  Folk-right could, however, be broken or modified by special law or special grant, and the fountain of such privileges was the royal power.  Alterations and exceptions were, as a matter of fact, suggested by the interested parties themselves, and chiefly by the Church.  Thus a privileged land-tenure was created—­bookland; the rules as to the succession of kinsmen were set at nought by concession of testamentary power and confirmations of grants and wills; special exemptions from the jurisdiction of the hundreds and special privileges as to levying fines were conferred.  In process of time the rights originating in royal grants of privilege overbalanced, as it were, folk-right in many respects, and became themselves the starting-point of a new legal system—­the feudal one.

(b) Another feature of vital importance in the history of Anglo-Saxon law is its tendency towards the preservation of peace.  Society is constantly struggling to ensure the main condition of its existence—­peace.  Already in AEthelberht’s legislation we find characteristic fines inflicted for breach of the peace of householders of different ranks—­the ceorl, the eorl, and the king himself appearing as the most exalted among them.  Peace is considered not so much a state of equilibrium and friendly relations between parties, but rather as the rule of a third within a certain region—­a house, an estate, a kingdom.  This leads on one side to the recognition of private authorities—­the father’s in his family, the master’s as to servants, the lord’s as to his personal or territorial dependents.  On the other hand, the tendency to maintain peace naturally takes its course towards the strongest ruler, the king, and we witness in Anglo-Saxon law the gradual evolution of more and more stringent and complete rules in respect of the king’s peace and its infringements.

(c) The more ancient documents of Anglo-Saxon law show us the individual not merely as the subject and citizen of a certain commonwealth, but also as a member of some group, all the fellows of which are closely allied in claims and responsibilities.  The most elementary of these groups is the maegth, the association of agnatic and cognatic relations.  Personal protection and revenge, oaths, marriage,