Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/75

 in the Middle Ages. 59 by drowning. The right of Furca was, in fact, a part of the Regalia, or rights of royalty, possessed by the Anglo-Saxon kings as inheritors of the old Germanic priesthood." It would appear from many passages in the older chroniclers, that, among the Northern nations, the punishment of a criminal often combined at once an execu- tion and a sacrifice to their gods. This is apparent, not only from the Land nama ok, in which Odin is styled Hango, and Galgavalldr," i. e. Lord of the Gallows, but also from the Frisian law already referred to. The great sacrifice of the Danes recorded by Ditmar, when ninety-nine men, and the same number of horses, dogs, and cocks, the last in the place of hawks, were offered up at one time at Lethra, in the Island of Seland, c was doubtless of the same character. A like combination was to be seen in that hideous grove near the Temple at Upsala, described by Adam of Bremen, where the bodies of men, horses, and dogs were hung together on the trees. Here too was a well, into which living men were plunged and drowned to deprecate the wrath of the gods. d In the Chronicle of Jean Juvenal des Ursins, under the year 1417, we find an account of the profligacy of the court of the French Queen, of the singular extra- vagances in costume, and of the irregularities of certain men of rank, among whom was one named Bourrodon, who, admitting the truth of the accusations preferred against him, was ignominiously executed by drowning in the Seine. That this mode of punishment was usually awarded in France to criminals of the lowest class is shown by the application of the phrase gens de sac et dc corde, to common malefactors in those days. e Numerous examples of drowning arc recorded in the French Chronicles, but the most horrible are those mentioned by Sauval, who tells us that in the year 1441 such of the English prisoners taken at Pontoise as were unable to obtain their ransom were mercilessly drowned by their captors/ ~Ve learn from this writer that in Paris criminals were executed at the Pont au Change.* a Omnia qualstowa [cwealmstowa], i. occidendorum loca, totaliter regis sunt, in soca sua. Leg. Hen. I. c. x. ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 519. " Comp. pp. 176, 361, 412, and 417, Islands Landnama Bok. 4to. Hann. 1770. c p OS t hoc tempus, quo nos Theophaniam Domini celebramus, omnes conveniunt, et ibi diis suismet l.xxxx. et novem homines, et totidem equos cum canibus, et gallis, pro accipitribus oblatis, immolant, pro certo, ut pnedixi, putantes hos eisdem [erga inferos servituros et commissa crimina apud eos] placaturos. Ditmarus, apud Script. Rer. Brunswic, ed. Leibnitzii, torn. i. p. 327, Hanov. 1710. d Ibi [Ubsola] etiam est fons, ubi sacrificia paganorum sclent exerceri et homo vivus immergi. Adam Bremen. Lib. iv. Schol. 134. e Sauval, Ant. de Paris, ii. p. 597. f Ib. loc. cit. K Ib. loc. cit, 12