wardship, succession, supervision over settlement, and good behaviour, are regulated by the law of kinship.  A man’s actions are considered not as exertions of his individual will, but as acts of the kindred, and all the fellows of the maegth are held responsible for them.  What began as a natural alliance was used later as a means of enforcing responsibility and keeping lawless individuals in order.  When the association of kinsmen failed, the voluntary associations—­guilds—­appeared as substitutes.  The gild brothers associated in mutual defence and support, and they had to share in the payment of fines.  The township and the hundred came also in for certain forms of collective responsibility, because they presented groups of people associated in their economic and legal interests.

(d) In course of time the natural associations get loosened and intermixed, and this calls forth the elaborate police legislation of the later Anglo-Saxon kings.  Regulations are issued about the sale of cattle in the presence of witnesses.  Enactments about the pursuit of thieves, and the calling in of warrantors to justify sales of chattels, are other expressions of the difficulties attending peaceful intercourse.  Personal surety appears as a complement of and substitute for collective responsibility.  The hlaford and his hiredmen are an institution not only of private patronage, but also of police supervision for the sake of laying hands on malefactors and suspected persons.  The landrica assumes the same part in a territorial district.  Ultimately the laws of the 10th and 11th centuries show the beginnings of the frankpledge associations, which came to act so important a part in the local police and administration of the feudal age.

The points mentioned are not many, but, apart from their intrinsic importance in any system of law, they are, as it were, made prominent by the documents themselves, as they are constantly referred to in the latter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—­Editions:  Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (1903, 1906) is indispensable, and leaves nothing to be desired as to the constitution of the texts.  The translations and notes are, of course, to be considered in the light of an instructive, but not final, commentary.  R. Schmid, Gesetze der Angelsachsen (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1858) is still valuable on account of its handiness and the fulness of its glossary.  B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (1840) is not very trustworthy. Domesday Book, i. ii. (Rec.  Comm.); Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, i.-vi. ed.  J.M.  Kemble (1839-1848); Cartularium Saxonicum (up to 940), ed.  W. de Gray Birch (1885-1893); J. Earle, Land Charters (Oxford, 1888); Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicanum; Facsimiles of Ancient Charters, edited by the Ordnance Survey and by the British Museum; Haddan and Stubbs, Councils of Great Britain, i.-iii. (Oxford, 1869-1878).