Prisoners taken in battle, especially native Britons taken by invading groups, became slaves. A slave who was captured or purchased was a "theow". An "esne" was a slave who worked for hire. A "weallas" was a Welsh slave. Criminals became slaves of the person wronged or of the king. Sometimes a father pressed by need sold his children or his wife into bondage. Debtors, who increased in number during famine, which occurred regularly, became slaves by giving up the freeman's sword and spear, picking up a slave's mattock [pick ax for the soils], and placing their head within a lord's or lady's hands. They were called wite-theows. The original meaning of the word lord was "loaf-giver". Children with a slave parent were slaves. The slaves lived in huts around the homes of big landholders, which were made of logs and consisted on one large room or hall. An open hearth was in the middle of the earthen floor of the hall, which was strewn with rushes. There was a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. Here the landholder and his men would eat meat, bread, salt, hot spiced ale, and mead while listening to minstrels sing about the heroic deeds of their ancestors. Richer men drank wine. There were festivals which lasted several days, in which warriors feasted, drank, gambled, boasted, and slept where they fell. Physical strength and endurance in adversity were admired traits.

Slaves often were used as grain grinders, ploughmen, sowers, haywards, woodwards, shepherds, goatherds, swineherds, oxherds, cowherds, dairymaids, and barnmen. Slaves had no legal rights. A lord could kill his slave at will. A wrong done to a slave was regarded as done to his owner. If a person killed another man's slave, he had to compensate him with the slave's purchase price. The slave owner had to answer for the offenses of his slaves against others, as for the mischief done by his cattle. Since a slave had no property, he could not be fined for crimes, but was whipped, mutilated, or killed.

During famine, acorns, beans, peas, and even bark were ground down to supplement flour when grain stocks grew low. People scoured the hedgerows for herbs, roots, nettles, and wild grasses, which were usually left for the pigs. Sometimes people were driven to infanticide or group suicide by jumping together off a cliff or into the water.

Several large kingdoms came to replace the many small ones. The people were worshipping pagan gods when St. Augustine came to England in 596 A.D. to Christianize them. King AEthelbert of Kent [much later a county] and his wife, who had been raised Christian on the continent, met him when he arrived. The King gave him land where there were ruins of an old city. Augustine used stones from the ruins to build a church which was later called Canterbury. He also built the first St. Paul's church in London. Aethelbert and his men who fought with him and ate and lived in his household [gesiths] became Christian. A succession of princesses went out from Kent to marry other Saxon kings and convert them to Christianity.

Augustine knew how to write, but King AEthelbert did not. The King announced his laws at meetings of his people and his eorls would decide the punishments. There was a fine of 120s. for disregarding a command of the King. He and Augustine decided to write down some of these laws, which now included the King's new law concerning the church.

These laws concern personal injury, killing, theft, burglary, marriage, adultery, and inheritance. The blood feud's private revenge for killing had been replaced by payment of compensation to the dead man's kindred. One paid a man's "wergeld" [worth] to his kindred for causing his wrongful death. The wergeld [wer] of a king was an unpayable amount of about 7000s., of an aetheling [a king-worthy man of the extended royal family] was 1500s., of an eorl, 300s., of a ceorl, 100s., of a laet [agricultural worker in Kent, which class was between free and slave], 40-80s., and of a slave nothing. At this time a shilling could buy a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. If a ceorl killed an eorl, he paid three times as much as an eorl would have paid as murderer. The penalty for slander was tearing out of the tongue. If an aetheling was guilty of this offense, his tongue was worth five times that of a coerl, so he had to pay proportionately more to ransom it. The crimes of murder, treachery to one's own lord, arson, house breaking, and open theft, were punishable by death and forfeiture of all property.

The Law

"THESE ARE THE DOOMS [DECREES] WHICH KING AETHELBERHT ESTABLISHED IN THE DAYS OF AUGUSTINE

1. [Theft of] the property of God and of the church [shall be compensated], twelve fold; a bishop's property, eleven fold; a priest's property, nine fold; a deacon's property, six fold; a cleric's property, three fold; church frith [breach of the peace of the church; right of sanctuary and protection given to those within its precincts], two fold [that of ordinary breach of the public peace]; m....frith [breach of the peace of a meeting place], two fold.
2. If the King calls his leod [his people] to him, and any one there do them evil, [let him compensate with] a twofold bot [damages for the injury], and 50 shillings to the King.
3. If the King drink at any one's home, and any one there do any lyswe [evil deed], let him make twofold bot.
4. If a freeman steal from the King, let him repay nine fold.
5. If a man slay another in the King's tun [enclosed dwelling premises], let him make bot with 50 shillings.
6. If any one slay a freeman, 50 shillings to the King, as drihtin beah [payment to a lord in compensation for killing his freeman].
7. If the King's ambiht smith [smith or carpenter] or laad rine [man who walks before the King or guide or escort], slay a man, let him pay a half leod geld.
8. [Offenses against anyone or anyplace under] the King's mund byrd [protection or patronage], 50 shillings.
9. If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and let the King have the wite [fine] and all the chattels [necessary to pay the fine]. (Chattels was a variant of "cattle".)
10. If a man lie with the King's maiden [female servant], let him pay a bot of 50 shillings.
11. If she be a grinding slave, let him pay a bot of 25 shillings. The third [class of servant] 12 shillings.
12. Let the King's fed esl [woman who serves him food or nurse] be paid for with 20 shillings.
13. If a man slay another in an eorl's tun [premises], let [him] make bot with 12 shillings.
14. If a man lie with an eorl's birele [female cupbearer], let him make bot with 12 shillings.
15. [Offenses against a person or place under] a ceorl's mund byrd [protection], 6 shillings.
16. If a man lie with a ceorl's birele [female cupbearer], let him make bot with 6 shillings; with a slave of the second [class], 50 scaetts; with one of the third, 30 scaetts.
17. If any one be the first to invade a man's tun [premises], let him make bot with 6 shillings; let him who follows, with 3 shillings; after, each, a shilling.
18. If a man furnish weapons to another where there is a quarrel, though no injury results, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
19. If a weg reaf [highway robbery] be done [with weapons furnished by another], let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 6 shillings.
20. If the man be slain, let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 20 shillings.
21. If a [free] man slay another, let him make bot with a half leod geld [wergeld for manslaughter] of 100 shillings.
22. If a man slay another, at the open grave let him pay 20 shillings, and pay the whole leod within 40 days.
23. If the slayer departs from the land, let his kindred pay a half leod.
24. If any one bind a freeman, let him make bot with 20 shillings.
25. If any one slay a ceorl's hlaf aeta [loaf or bread eater; domestic or menial servant], let him make bot with 6 shillings.
26. If [anyone] slay a laet of the