550 ANNALS OF ROGER DE HOTEDEN. A.D. 1180, Of the wives of malefactors and their children. " If any such shall have wives living in this country, audi any one of the relatives of the person murdered shall say that they were accomplices in the crime, they shall make proof ofι their innocence by the judgment of God ; and if the mercy of God and their own innocence shall save them, they may eontinue to be lawful persons with their dowries and marriage portions. But children who, before commission of the crime, were born or begotten, are not to lose their lawful rights for a crime committed after they were begotten, nor are they to be deprived of their right of heirship. 1 Frithlorg" means, or the oath of the Ten Men, which the people of York call " Tenemental." ' • There is likewise one great and especial institution, bymeans 5Ï which all people are kept in a state of the greatest security, namely, where each person giving that pledge for himself on a certain security, which the English call ' Ereoborger.'88 The people of York, however, and they only, call it ' Tien manna tala,'89 which means ' The number often men.' This surety was exercised in the following manner; Inasmuch as all men in. all vills throughout the whole kingdom were bound to be divided into frank-pledges of ten, if one of the ten were guilty of an offence, there would be nine to force him to make redress ; and if he took to flight, a term of thirty-one days by law was granted them. On the person being sought for, and I found, he was taken before the king's justice, and out of his property reparation was instantly made for the injury he had done ; and if after that he was guilty of any offence, then justice was executed upon his body. But if within the time before-mentioned he could not be found, then, as there was in1 every frithborg one head man whom they called ' Preoborger heofod,'9 0 this head man would choose two of the best men of his own frithborgers, and then of the three frithborgs that were nearest, he would take the head man of each, and two of m for the Frank-pledge, su or rety give n by ten good behaviour of men the eleventh. 8 5 Or " Tenemental." It was also called a " Decennary," and each person bound for himself and his neighbour, was called a " decennier." 9 0 " Head of the frithborg." He was also called the " deciner," or " doziner."