about Divorce. Those of King Euricus expressly forbid it, save for Adultery. In Italy, those of King Theodoric ratified among the Ostrogoths the old Saxon law, which was the same as Constantine's, mentioned in a former part of the Essay. The Ancient Germans, and the nations descended from them, allowed of Divorce, if the wives had been taken without any marriage solemnity; the mode of executing which power was by declaring before seven witnesses, (advocates,) and five other persons, that they did not do it for any vice or failing in them, but because they liked some other better. These laws bear date in the sixth century, and consequently before those nations had embraced Christianity; but if the marriage ceremonies had been of a more formal nature, nothing but the death of one of the parties, or the infidelity of the wife to the marriage bed, could dissolve it; and, after they embraced the Christian Religion, they were still further confirmed in these sentiments of the sacredness of the marriage tie. Voluntary separations, however, became frequent among them, and monkish vows of chastity contributed to this abuse.

Of the Gallican Church we have already, in part, spoken. The Council of Elvira refused the communion, even at the hour of

death, to the woman, who, without lawful cause, forsook her husband, and married another. By another regulation of that same Council, Adultery was considered such a cause; she might forsake in that case, but not marry again, and she would be debarred the communion till after the death of her first husband. In those days of superstition this was a serious restraint.

In the seventeenth century we have an account of a Divorce obtained by one Polycarp Sengebera, a learned civilian, against his wife, by reason of her Adultery. The celebrated Giles Menage (the Varro of that time) was the plaintiff's advocate. The proofs of the crime were decisive, but the penalty they regarded as inconsiderable: the offending wife was

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merely," say they, "placed in a nunnery for solitary confinement." So slight this, that we may well cry out, as in Juvenal's time,

Ubi nunc lex Julia dormis ?"* What is become of the Roman laws, of the laws of Augustus, of Constantine, of Justinian?" It would have been well had no greater leniency ever afterwards marked the character of the people, and made that nation so famed for gallantry.

Juv. Sat. ii. v. 37.

We must pass now to the consideration of the subject in reference to the British Isles. It is not very useful, but it may be interesting, and is necessary to render this part of our subject complete, to inquire what our native savages thought of these matters.

The Anglo-Saxons afford some glimmering of legislation concerning them. They are said, in their own country, to have burnt the adulteress, and over her ashes erected a gibbet whereon the adulterer was hanged. And a kindred severity was imported by them into Ancient Britain.*

The laws of Withred, King of Kent, and which were made at the Council held at Berghamstead by Bertwald, Archbishop of

The following passage is very painful. It appears in an epistle to Æthelbald, King of Mercia, from Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, in the year 745, when he was the Pope's Legate in Germany. "In Antiquâ Saxoniâ (i. e. Germania) ubi nulla est Christi cognitio, si mulier maritata. pacto fœdere matrimonii Adulterium perpetravit aliquo, cogunt eam propriâ manu per laqueum suspensam vitam finire, et super bustum illius incensæ et concrematæ corruptorem ejus suspendent: aliquo congregato fœmineo exercitu, flagellatam eam mulieres per pagos circumquâque ducunt, virgis cadentes et pungentes punctis vulneribus cruentatam et laceratam de villâ ad villam mittunt; et occurrunt semper novæ flagellatrices zelo pudicitiâ adductæ usquequo eam aut mortuam aut vix vivam derelinquunt."

Canterbury, the Bishop of Hereford, and others, in 697, inflicted various pecuniary mulcts, besides excommunication, on such as should be found guilty of this crime. These mulcts were levied according to the condition in life of the offenders. If the offender was a military man, (gesith-cund-man,) it was enacted, that he should pay to his lord, a fine of one hundred shillings; a countryman or villager, (ceorles-man, or paganus,) fifty shillings; "besides that he shall do penance for his sin." If the adulterer were an alien, he was to depart the country, and take his sins and estate away with him; if a priest, he was to be inhibited from administering the sacrament of baptism. These excommunications indicate the commencement of that cognizance, which was afterwards taken of this crime, as an ecclesiastical offence, and thus early we discover the interposition of the church.

By the laws of Ethelbert, the adulterer paid a fine to the husband, and bought another wife for him. This shows, though somewhat equivocally, the value at that time set upon the female sex.

King Edgar enacted, that an adulterer, of either sex, should, for the space of seven years, live three days in every week upon bread and water; but the mode in which

the execution of this punishment was to be compelled, we do not learn.

King Edmund, (A. D. 944.) whose laws respecting marriage were as wholesome in some respects, as they were curious in others, ordered Adultery to be punished in the same manner as homicide.* ("Legibus Edmundi regis apud Brompton Adulterium sicut homicidium punitur.") And both the murderer and the adulterer were denied christian burial.

Alfred's laws increased the fine which had been settled by Withred, though it was still to be a kind of ad valorem mulct, according to the rank and quality, estate and circumstances, of the person injured by the crime, and those of the offender. This fine, sometimes one-tenth of the offender's property, sometimes more, was known by the expressive name of Lairwite, or Lecherwite, and Legergeldum, from two Saxon words, signifying concumbere, and mulcta; a privilege, which is said to have anciently belonged to the lords of some manors, over their villeins or tenants. The law itself was called a Talioes law. It is somewhat strange, that Alfred should not have visited this offence with personal severity,

Reg. Edm. lege suâ, cap. 4. "Affici jussit instar homicidii."