Anglo-Saxon Institutions. 449-1066 25
against the state. A man who could not pay Ms fine
and to whom the help of kin was lacking might be reduced
to slavery, and in the case of offences by slaves there were
traces of the old system of private vengeance or corporal
punishments which the fine system had mitigated. Some
offences, often those against the king, no one could make
good by a fine. Such were known as botless, and in the
later Anglo-Saxon period constituted the primitive pleas
of the crown. *
The last step in the proceedings in most cases was the
collection of the bot by the victorious party. This, like
the beginning of the case, was not attended to by an
officer, but by the man concerned. Here again, however,
the act had to be done at a certain time and in a certain
way, which had become fixed by custom. Public author-
ity backed up the individual if he met resistance in Ms
lawful undertaking, even the king sometimes riding forth
with his followers to aid in coercing some notoriously con-
tumacious wrong-doer. But, on the other hand, if the
man collecting the fine departed in the least from the
prescribed programme, he lost the benefits of his success-
ful suit.
Anything that can be called a law of property among
the Anglo-Saxons was rudimentary and mixed up with
precautions against theft and charges of theft. There
was scarcely any law of contract; "business had hardly
got beyond delivery against ready money between parties
both present." About the only transactions involving
future settlement were marriage and payment of wer and
some of the heavier fines. Here there was much of oath
and pledging. As to such trading disputes as there may
have been, the general law and courts seem to have taken
no account beyond the use of transaction witnesses al-
ready noticed. There may have been town and market
courts for such purposes. Land law seems very meager
and vague. There was little buying and selling of land—
probably when it was sold the consent of the whole vil-
lage must be gained. In the case of ordinary free land-