ABSTRACT
Germanic society, both before the migrations and after the settlement in England, was marked by two prominent characteristics: the folk-law and the kindred. Whenever people begin to associate together in some kind of communal life, rules of conduct have to be devised to maintain peace and order. After the main stages of conquest and settlement had been completed, Anglo-Saxon England appeared as a mosaic of many independent ‘folks’. The territorial area, occupied and developed by each ‘folk’, whether it constituted a large or a small community, was frequently termed a ‘province’. It is beyond all dispute that the Anglo-Saxons introduced into their new home the principles of Germanic society simply because they were the only ones they knew. Society, however, was not so confined as it were to hermetically-sealed compartments that movement from one to another, either higher or lower, was impossible.
