Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/311

Rh England, but we now know from anthropological discoveries that there were important differences. We gather very little from the chroniclers concerning the Anglo-Saxon courts and judicial procedure, but we can learn much about these from the codes or collections of primitive laws which have been preserved, and by a comparison of them with those that have come down to us in other countries from which some of the Old English came. Similarly, the local customs which have survived on many manors, and in some cases in wide districts, are but legal curiosities until they are compared with similar systems of local jurisprudence elsewhere, in the Continental countries from which our remote fore-fathers came. It is by such a comparison we should study the Lincolnshire -bys. These -by place-names are commonly regarded as Danish, but they are also Northern Gothic, as the numerous places-names ending in -by to this day in Swedish Gothland prove. This shows that some of these places may have got their names from so-called Anglians. The strongest evidence as to what these -by places really were is found in ancient Gothland, the old country from which we derive so much other information that throws light upon the origin of the Anglo-Saxon race.

The oldest legal code of any part of Sweden which has been preserved is the Westgota-lag, and this contains some references to the administration of local law in the early time among the Goths. It has already been pointed out that Anglo-Saxon legal procedure was local, that the Hundred Court was a very important institution, and that the right of proof between litigants, as to which of them it might be given, was a most important advantage. If the disputant to whom the right of proof legally belonged could bring forward the required number of oath-helpers, to declare on oath that they believed in his oath and the justice of his cause, he won his case. This right of proof is mentioned in the Westgota-lag under the name of the