The property of God and the Church, 12 fold; Bishop's property, 11 fold;
Priest's, 9 fold [the same as the King's]; Deacon's, 6 fold; Clerk's, 3
fold." Next follows one that we may well suppose might have been the
first of the pre-Christian code: "Cap. 2. If the king summon his people
to him, and one there do them evil--double bôt, and 50 shillings to the
king." Bede mentions (ii., 5) these laws of Æthelberht, and especially
this feature of them, that they began with the protection of Church
property. He also says, that the king constituted these laws according
to Roman precedent (_juxta exempla Romanorum_), by which some have been
led to expect that there would be an element of Roman law in them. The
imitation consisted only in committing the laws to writing.

Æthelberht died in 616, and then came a heathen reaction under his son
Eadbald; but he was converted to Christianity in 618 by Bishop
Laurentius. His son Erconbriht, who succeeded in 640, was the first
king who dared to demolish the heathen fanes. Bede informs us that this
king made a law for the observance of the Lenten fast; but no law of the
kind appears until we come to the laws of Wihtred. Ecgbriht succeeded
his father in 664, under whom the waning power of Kent reasserted its
former sway. To him succeeded first Hlothære in 673, and then Eadric.
These two reigns were short, and the names of both the kings stand at
the head of the next Kentish code.

The introductory sentence of this code was this:--"Hlothhære and Eadric,
kings of the men of Kent, enlarged the laws which their predecessors had
made aforetime, with these dooms following":--

Cap. 8. If one man implead another in a matter, and he cite the man
to a 'Methel' or a 'Thing', let the man always give security to the
other, and do him such right, as the Kentish judges prescribe to