was killed or injured, was entitled to receive, was shared equally between the father, the children, brothers, and the paternal uncles. The rest of the fine was shared by the whole kindred,[1] but it does not appear that any record remains to show exactly how or in what proportions.
There is another aspect from which the mægth or kindred may be viewed, and that is in relation to oath-taking. It is not possible for us to realize fully the oath-taking that was carried on as a judicial system among the Old English and the tribes from which they sprang. If a man was accused of a certain crime, and he swore he was innocent, he had the right of proof, and called his oath-helpers around him. If they took oath that they believed his oath to be clean, and that he did not commit the crime, his acquittal followed as a matter of course. This was trial by compurgation, and much depended on which party had the right of proof. A man naturally looked to his kindred for his oath-helpers, and the wider his kindred, the more numerous were those he could generally gather for his defence. He had, no doubt, to convince them that he was innocent, and they would be ready to take oaths in his defence, for if he was proved guilty they would, as his kindred, be liable to pay his fine.
It is not possible to understand the circumstances of the settlement and life of the Old English people without realizing the great importance of the kindred tie. In the many instances in which we find old settlements named as the tunor ham of a man, the settlement was not only the tun or ham of a man, but also of his family and of some, at least, of his near kindred who assisted him in the cultivation of the land. The -ing terminal part of many place-names in south and south-eastern England had a wider significance than merely ‘son of.’ In many cases it included all the near kindred, probably in some cases all those who were liable as kinsmen. Viewed in this light, such place-names as Basing, Malling,
- ↑ Young, Ernest, loc, cit., p. 144.
