2d.  In proportioning the pecuniary mulcts imposed by them for all, even the highest crimes, according to the dignify of the person injured, and to the quantity of the offence.  For this purpose they classed the people with great regularity and exactness, both in the ecclesiastic and the secular lines, adjusting with great care the ecclesiastical to the secular dignities; and they not only estimated each man’s life according to his quality, but they set a value upon every limb and member, down even to teeth, hair, and nails; and these are the particulars in which their laws are most accurate and best defined.

3d.  In settling the rules and ceremonies of their oaths, their purgations, and the whole order and process of their superstitious justice:  for by these methods they seem to have decided all controversies.

4th.  In regulating the several fraternities of Frank-pledges, by which all the people were naturally bound to their good behavior to one another and to their superiors; in all which they were excessively strict, in order to supply by the severity of this police the extreme laxity and imperfection of their laws, and the weak and precarious authority of their kings and magistrates.

These, with some regulations for payment of tithes and Church dues, and for the discovery and pursuit of stealers of cattle, comprise almost all the titles deserving notice in the Saxon laws.  In those laws there are frequently to be observed particular institutions, well and prudently framed; but there is no appearance of a regular, consistent, and stable jurisprudence.  However, it is pleasing to observe something of equity and distinction gradually insinuating itself into these unformed materials, and some transient flashes of light striking across the gloom which prepared for the full day that shone out afterwards.  The clergy, who kept up a constant communication with Rome, and were in effect the Saxon legislators, could not avoid gathering some informations from a law which never was perfectly extinguished in that part of the world.  Accordingly we find one of its principles had strayed hither so early as the time of Edric and Lothaire.[85] There are two maxims[86] of civil law in their proper terms in the code of Canute the Great, who made and authorized that collection after his pilgrimage to Rome; and at this time, it is remarkable, we find the institutions of other nations imitated.  In the same collection there is an express reference to the laws of the Werini.  From hence it is plain that the resemblance between the polity of the several Northern nations did not only arise from their common original, but also from their adopting, in some cases, the constitutions of those amongst them who were most remarkable for their wisdom.

In this state the law continued until the Norman Conquest.  But we see that even before that period the English law began to be improved by taking in foreign learning; we see the canons of several councils mixed indiscriminately with the civil constitutions; and, indeed, the greatest part of the reasoning and equity to be found in them seems to be derived from that source.