Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/98

 78 Hijiory of Domejlic Maniiers by the law of the land, to fliow that he had no willi to avoid obfervation •■, one of the earlier Anglo-Saxon codes of laws, that of king Wihtraed, direfted that " if a man come from afar, or a ftranger go out of the high way, and he then neither fliout nor blow a horn, he is to be accounted a thief, either to be flain, or to be redeemed." So prevalent, indeed, was theft and unfair dealing among our Anglo- Saxon forefathers, and fo much litigation and unjuft perfecution arofe from difputed claims to property which had been, or was pretended to have been, purchafed, that it was made illegal to buy or fell without witnefles. It would be eafy to multiply examples of robbery and plunder from Anglo-Saxon writers ; but I will only ftate that, according to the Ely hiftory, fome merchants from Ireland, having come to Cambridge in the time of king Edgar, to offer their wares for fale, perhaps at the No. 52. Taking Tdl. annual feftivities of the Beorna-wyl, mentioned above, a pr'ieft of the place was guilty of ftealing a part of their merchandife. We know but little of the trades and forms of commercial dealings of the Anglo-Saxons ; but we may take our leave of the period of which we have been hitherto treating, with a few figures relating to money matters, from the Anglo- Saxon manufcript of the Pfalms (MS. Harl. No. 603). The cut No. 52 reprefents, apparently, a man in the market, or at the gates of a city, taking