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PROLOGUE. This is the peace which King Alfred and King Guthrum and the councillors of all the English race and all the people which is in East Anglia have all agreed on and confirmed with oaths, for themselves and for their subjects, both for the living and those yet unborn, who care to have God's grace or ours.
1. First concerning our boundaries: up1 the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to the Watling Street.
2. This is next, if a man is slain, all of us2 estimate Englishman and Dane at the same amount, at eight half-marks3 of refined gold, except the ceorl who occupies rented land4, and their [the Danes'] freedmen; these also are estimated at the same amount, both at 200 shillings.
3. And if anyone accuses a king's thegn of manslaughter, if he dares to clear himself by oath, he is to do it with 12 king's thegns; if anyone accuses a man who is less powerful then a king's thegn, he is to clear himself with 12 of his equals and with one king's thegn – and so in every suit which involves more than four mancuses – and if he dare not [clear himself], he is to pay three-fold compensation, according as it is valued.
4. And that each man is to know his warrantor at [the purchase of] men or horses or oxen.
5. And we all agreed on the day when the oaths were sworn, that no slaves nor freemen might go without permission into the army of the Danes, any more than any of theirs to us. But if it happens that from necessity any one of them wishes to have traffic with us, or we with them, for cattle or goods, it is to be permitted on condition that hostages shall be given as a pledge of peace and as evidence so that one may know no fraud is intended5.
ПРИМЕЧАНИЯ
1. For up an meaning "up" cf. the Chronicle 895.
2. Liebermann, however, takes "all" as adverbial, i.e. "precisely we estimate".
3. A mark was a Scandinavian weight, by the end of the next century, and perhaps already, about 3440-3520 grains. The amount here stated may represent a recognised Scandinavian wergild, but, if the ratio of gold to silver was approximately 10: 1 at this time, it would not be very far from the wergild of the highest English class, see Chadwick, Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions, pp. 50 f.
4. It is perhaps best to interpret this, as does Stenton (Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd edn, pp. 261 f.), as meaning all of the ceorl class who do not farm land of their own. Those of this class who do are then classed with Englishmen of noble rank as level with all free classes of Danes. One should compare the treaty with the Danes in Ethelred's reign (No. 42), where similarly Danish and English free men are set level and paid for at the highest wergild (£25 = 1200 West Saxon shillings). It would not be in itself inconceivable that the Danes might insist on lowering all English ceorlas to the level of their own half-free class, but if that were what was meant here, the relative clause would seem redundant.
5. Literally, "that one has a clean back".
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