In the exercise of this terrible power, both the early continental Germans and their Anglo-Saxon descendants abstained from acts of deliberate cruelty. It was not usual with the Germans to punish their slaves with whips or chains, or to oppress them with uncertain exactions. No law, however, protected their lives; and though they were never put to death deliberately, they were often slain in fits of passion. The earliest laws of the Anglo-Saxons were in accordance with Germanic customs. They permitted the master to put his slave to death when, where, and how he pleased; and the first modification of this barbarous right, which emanated from the clergy, was so slight, that it could have but little influence on national manners.”[1] Even the intentional beating to death of a slave was punished only by penitential fasting, the rigour of which Anglo-Saxon casuistry found means effectually to evade. And for the knocking out an eye or tooth the Church advised the master to give the slave his freedom, but the law did not compel it.
The expression “he shall be surely punished” in the Hebrew law just cited, is indefinite; and Michaelis thinks that it cannot be taken as meaning capital punishment, though no fine or other secondary punishment is specified. But it must be observed that the law speaks not of wilful murder, but of excessive chastisement inflicted by the “rod” of the master and unintentionally resulting in death. There seems to be nothing to take the wilful murder of a bondman, whether by his master or by any other person, out of
