them.

This code has a little series of laws concerning offences to the sense
of honour, and consequent danger to the king's peace:--

Cap. 11. If in another's house one man calleth another man a
perjurer, or assail him offensively with injurious words; let him
pay a shilling to the owner of the house, and 6 shillings to the
insulted man, and forfeit 12 shillings to the king.

Cap. 12. If a man remove another's stoup where men drink without
offence, by old right he pays a shilling to him who owns the house,
and 6 shillings to him whose stoop was taken away, and 12 shillings
to the king.

Cap. 13. If weapon be drawn where men drink, and no harm be done; a
shilling to the owner of the house, and 12 shillings to the king.

After a troublous time of encroachment from the side of Wessex, the
kingdom of Kent had again a time of honour, if not of absolute
independence, under king Wihtred (691-725), who, in the preamble to his
laws, is called the most gracious king of the Kentish folk (_se mildesta
cyning Cantwara_). His laws are mostly ecclesiastical. The rights of the
Church and of her ministers, the keeping of the Sunday, manumission of
slaves at the altar, penalties for heathen rites, these subjects make
the bulk of a code of 28 captels, of which the last four are about
theft. The closing provision is characteristic of the state of society:

Cap. 28. If a man from a distance, or a stranger, go off the road,
and he neither shout nor blow a horn, as a thief he is liable to be