Foreword: the Folk and Ware of the Wedded Burghs
We the Folk of the Wedded Burghs, in mind to shape a more hale Weoroth, found Right, ward home-Frith, bring for the moot-shield, forward the all-Welfare, and ward the Blessings of Freedom to ourselves and our After-Kindred, do land and found this Ware for the Wedded Burghs of America.
Limb the First - Of The Wittangemot:
Share the First - The Lawmoot
All lawmaking might herein given shall be clothed upon a Wittangemot of the Wedded Burghs, which shall withhold and Eldercy and a House of Standmen. The House of Standmen shall be made of Guilders cheered every other year by the folks of the sundry burghs, and the Cheermen in each burgh shall have the wherewithal needed for Cheermen of the most greatly reckoned branch of the Burghish Lawmoot.
Share the Other - The House
No man shall be a Standman who shall not have come to the eld of one score and five years and been seven years a burgher of the Wedded Burghs and who shall not, when cheered, be a dweller of that burgh in which he shall be cheered.
The true Tally shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the the Wittangemot of the Wedded Burghs and within every later stretch of ten years, in such a way as they shall be by Law righted.
The tally of Standmen shall not be greater than one for every thirty Thousand, but every Burgh shall have at Least one standman; and until such reckoning shall be made the burgh of New Hampshire shall be entitled to cheer three, Massachusetts eight, Rose-Island-and-Godwatch-Fields one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennwood eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Maidenland ten, North Churlquaenland five, South Churlquaenland five, and Georgia three.
When Emitting happen in the Standery from any Burgh, the Doing Ealdory thereof shall issue Writs of Taking to fill such emitting.
The House of Standmen shall cheer their Speaker and other Ealdors; and shall have alone the Might of Faulting.
Share the Third - The Eldercy
The Eldercy of the Wedded Burghs shall be made of two Elders from each burgh, cheered by the Lawmoot thereof, for six Years; and each Elder shall have one cast. As they gather after their first Cheering, they shall split anon, as evenly as may be, unto three shares: The seats of the Elders of the First Share shall be emitted at the passing of the second year, of the second share at the passing of the fourth year and of the third share at the sixth year, so that one third may be cheered each second year. And if emitting happen by flight, or otherwise, within the out-time of the Lawmoot of any Burgh, the Doing thereof may make timed naming until the next sitting of the Lawmoot which shall then fill such emitting.
No Man shall be an Elder who shall not have come to the Eld of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Burgher of the Wedded Burghs, and who shall not, when cheered, be a dweller of that Burgh for which he shall be cheered.
The Other-Reeve of the Wedded Burghs shall be Reeve of the Eldercy, but shall have no cast, unless they be evenly shared.
The Eldercy shall cheer their other Ealdors, and also a Day-Reeve, in the lack of the Other-Reeve, or when he shall do the work of Reeve of the Wedded Burghs.
The Eldercy shall have the only might to try all Faultings. When sitting for that work, they shall be on Oath or Yay-saying. When the Reeve of the Wedded Burghs is tried, the High Doomsman shall head: And no man shall be guilted without two thirds of the elders witness. Pain in befalls of Faulting shall not spread further than to emitting from Work, and un-skilling to hold and eat any work of worth, Trust or gain under the Wedded Burghs: but the One convicted shall yet be bondable and underthing to Flyting, Kor, Dooming and Pain, within Law.
Share the Fourth - Cheering and Meeting
The times, tuns, and way of holding cheering of Elders and Standmen shall be forewritten in each burgh by the Lawmoot thereof. But the Wittangemot may at any time by Law make or change such Rules, without the tun of cheering elders. The Wittangemot shall meet however once in each year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law named another Day. Each House shall be the Hall of the Cheering, Back-going and Worth of its own guilders, and a Greater Share of each shall make a Reckoning to do work; but a smaller Tally may leave from day to day, and may have might to bind the Meet of withdrawing Guilders, in such way, and under such pains as each House may craft.
Each House may set the Rules of its forwarding, pain its guilders for un-right ways, and, with the gemote of two thirds, banish a Guilder.
Share the Fifth- Guildery, Rules, Daybooks and Leave
Each House shall keep a Daybook of its Forwarding, and from time to time grave the same, excepting such Shares as may in their Wit need Hiding; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any Ask shall, at the Will of one fifth of those Witness, graved on the Book.
Neither House, during the Meet of the Wittangemot, shall, without the Will of the other, leave for more than three days, nor to any other Stan than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
The Elders and Standmen shall unfan a fee for their Hearsomeness, to be made true by Law, and sheeted out of the Hoard of the Wedded Burghs.
Share the Sixth- Fee
They shall in all Befallings, except Switchery, Witetheny and Frith-breach, be shielded from Hold during their Witness at the Meet of their sundry Houses, and in going to and going back from the same; and for any Speech or Riddle in either House, they shall not be asked in any other Tun.
No Elder or Standman shall, within the Time for which he was cheered, be named to any Burghish Ealdory under the Hand of the Wedded Burghs, which shall have been crafted, or the fees whereof shall have grown within such time; and no Man holding any Ealdory under the Wedded Burghs, shall be a Guilder of either House within his time in Ealdory.
Share the Seventh - Income Words, Lawmaking Forwarding, Reeve's Stop
All Words for raising Income shall start in the House of Standman; but the Eldercy may cost or gemite with Gimming as on other Wording.
Every Wording which shall have passed the House of Standmen and the Eldercy, shall, before it become a Law, be read to the Reeve of the Wedded Burghs; If he gemites, he shall mark it, but if not he shall give it back, with his pangs to that House in which it shall have started, who shall enter the pangs greatly on their Book, and go to gain-riddle it If after such gain-riddling two thirds of that House shall gemite to pass the Wording, it shall be sent, together with the Pangs, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be gain-riddled, and if gemited by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law
But in every like Befallings the Casts of both Houses shall be set by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Men casting for and against the Costing shall be graved on the Book of each House alike.
If any Wording shall not be given back by the Reeve within ten Days (Sundays without) after it shall have been read to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Way as if he had marked it, unless the Wittangemot by their Leave stop its Coming-back, in which befall it shall not be a Law.
Every Righting, Wit-word, or Cast to which the gemote of the Eldercy and House of Standmen may be needed (without on a ask of Leave) shall be read to the Reeve of the Wedded Burghs; and before the Same shall take Might, shall be gemited by him, or being un-gemited by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Eldercy and House of Standmen, with the Rules and Endings forewritten in the Befall of a Wording.
Share the Eighth - The Might of the Wittangemot
The Wittangemot shall be Mighty:
To lay and gather Gelds, Sheets, Burdens and Carveouts, to pay the Loans and bring for the moot-Shield and all-Welfare of the Wedded Burghs; but all Sheets, Burdens and Carveouts shall be alike throughout the Wedded Burghs;
To borrow Geld on the Bidding of the Wedded Burghs; To right trade with Welsh Folks, and among the several Burghs, and with the Indian Kindred;
To found a like Rule of Burgeoning, and like Laws on the thing of Bankruptcies throughout the Wedded Burghs;
To press Sheet, set the Worth thereof, and of Welsh Geld, and fix the Poll of Weights and Metes;
To bring forth the Pain of falsifying the Safe-writ and going Geld of the Wedded Burghs;
To found the Beaconery of the Wedded Burghs.
To forward the foregoing of Knowledge and useful Crafts, by warding for set Times to Gravers and Tinkers the only Right to their Writings and Findings;
To gather Wits underneath the High Doom.
To line and pain Viking and Witethenies done on the high Seas, and Switches against the Law of All Folks;
To call War, give Writs of Marking and Fading, and make Rules overlooking Ensnaring on Land and Water;
To raise and support Fyrds, but no setting aside of Geld to that Broach shall be for a longer Time than two Years;
To bring for and keep a Fleet;
To make Rules for the Righting and Ruling of the land and floating Strengths;
To bring for calling forth the Fyrd to do the Laws of the Bond, put down uprisings and repel In-wadings.
To bring for kenning, weaponing, and paining, the Fyrds, and for ruling such Share of them as may be worked in the Hearsomeness of the Wedded Burghs, keeping to the Burghs alike, the Naming of the Thains, and the Might of learning the Fyrd with the pain forewritten by the Wittangemot;
To craft alone Laws in all Befalling whatsoever, over such Shire (not greater than ten Miles fourthed) as may, by Cutting of sundry Burghs, and the Taking of the Wittangemot, become the Seat of Ruling of the Wedded Burghs, and to do in like Might over all Tuns taken by the gemote of the Lawmoot of the Burgh in which the Same shall be, for the Raising of Strongholds, Gunpowder-houses, Wapentakes, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And To make all Laws which shall be needed and mete for bringing into Doing the foregoing Mights, and all other Mights clothed by this Weave in the Ruling of the Wedded Burgh, or in any Outshare or Ealdor thereof.
Share the Ninth - Fasting of the Wittangemot
The Coming or Bringing-in of such Men as any of the Burghs now standing shall think mete to admit, shall not be banned by the Wittangemot afore the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Geld or Sheet may be put upon such Bringing in, not greater than ten dollars for each Man.
The Boon of the Writ of Body-grasp shall not be unmade, unless when in Befalling of Uprising or In-wading the Land-Frith may need it.
No Word of Taking or Afterdid Law shall be passed. No Poll, or other direct, Geld shall be laid, unless in size to the Reckoning or tally herein before called to be taken.
No Geld or Sheet shall be laid on Goods brought out from any Burgh. No Boon shall be given by any Rule of Trade or Income to the Wiches of one Burgh over those of another: nor shall Ships bound to, or from, one burgh, be blighted to enter, clear, or give Sheet in another.
No Geld shall be drawn from the Hoard, but after Sharing made by Law; and a rightly Word and Reckoning of the Intake and Outtake of all folkish Geld shall be graved from time to time.
No Name of Earldom shall be given by the Wedded Burghs: And no Man holding any Ealdory of Bounty or Trust under them, shall, without the gemote of the Wittangemot, take of any gift, fees, Ealdory, or name, of any kind whatever, from any King, Atheling, or Welsh Burgh.
Share the Tenth - Mights Foresworn to Burghs
No Burgh shall come into any read, Friendship, or Bond; give Writs of Marking and Feuding; press Geld; emit Writs of Bidding; make any Thing but gold and silver Geld a boon in feeding Loans; pass any Word of Taking, Afterdid Law, or Law crippling the Strength of Troth, or give any Name of Earldom.
No Burgh shall, without the Gemote of the Wittangemot, lay any stakes or Burdens on Intaking or Outtake, what may be in plight needed for doing it's onlooking Laws: and the clean Make of all Burdens and Stakes, laid by any Burgh on Intake or Outtake, shall be for the Broach of the Hoard of the Wedded Burghs; and all such Laws shall be under the gainsay and Rod of the Wittangemot.
No Burgh shall, without the Gemote of the Wittangemot , lay any burden of Ship-weight, keep Housecarls, or Ships of War in time of Frith, enter into any Gemote or Bond with another Burgh, or with a Welsh Might, or come in War, unless truthfully in-waded, or in such forthwith Plight as will not let tarrying.
Limb the Other: The Doing Bough
Share the First - The Reeve
The Doing Might shall be clothed in a Reeve of the Wedded Burghs of America. He shall hold his Ealdory during the Time of four Years, and, together with the Other-Reeve cheered for the like Time, be cheered, as follows: Each Burgh shall name, in such way as the Lawmoot thereof may right, a Tally of Cheermen, like to the whole Tally of Elders and Standmen to which the Burgh may be stowed in the Wittangemot: but no Elder or Standman, or Man holding an Ealdory of Trust or Gain under the United States, shall be appointed a Cheerman.
The Wittangemot may set the Time of picking the Cheermen, and the Day on which they shall give their Casts; which Day shall be alike throughout the Wedded Burghs. No Man but a true inborn Burgher, or a Burgher of the Wedded burghs, at the time of the Betaking of this Weave, shall be worthy to the Ealdory of Reeve; neither shall any Man be worthy to that Ealdory who shall not have come to the Eld of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Dweller within the Wedded Burghs.
The Reeve shall, at set Times, unfan for his Hearsomeness, a Fee, which shall neither grow nor shrink within the Time for which he shall have been cheered, and he shall not unfan within that Time any other Fees from the Wedded Burghs, or any of them.
Before he goes in on the Doing of his Ealdory , he shall take the following Oath or Troth:
"I do gravely swear (or betroth) that I will truthfully do the Ealdory of Reeve of the Wedded Burghs, and will to the best of my Strength, keep, shield and ward the Weave of the Wedded Burghs."
Section 2 - Burghish Hand over the Warlike, Witan, Might of Forgiveness, Naming
The Reeve shall be Head Thane of the Host and Fleet of the Wedded Burghs, and of the Fyrds of the sundry Burghs, when called into the true Hearsomeness of the Wedded Burghs; he may ask for the Mind, in writing, of the highest Ealdor in each of the doing Shares, upon any thing bound to the Burdens of their sundry Ealdories, and he shall have Might to Give Easing and Forgiveness for Switches against the Wedded Burghs, without in Befalling of Faulting.
He shall have Might, by and with the Wit and Gemote of the Eldercy, to make Bonds, given that two thirds of the Elders witnessing gemite; and he shall name, and by and with the Wit and Gemote of the Eldercy, shall show Heralds, other Port Beadles and Leaches, Doom-setters of the high Doom, and all other Ealdors of the Wedded Burghs, whose Naming are not herein otherwise brought for, and which shall be founded by Law: but the Wittangemot may by Law cloth the Naming of Neath-Ealdors, as they think mete, in the Reeve alone, in the Halls of Law, or in the Heads of Shares.
The Reeve shall have Might to fill up all Emitting that may happen during the Leave of the Eldercy, by giving Writs which shall vanish at the End of their next seating.
Share the Third - Standing of the Weoroth, Gathering Wittangemot
He shall from time to time give to the Wittangemot Knowledge of the Standing of the Weoroth, and urge to their Forethought such Steps as he shall think needed and broaching; he may, on Unfrolic Befalling, gather both Houses, or either of them, and in befalling of un-gemote between them, with thought to the Time of Leave, he may scatter them to such Time as he shall think mete; he shall unfan Heralds and other Port Beadles; he shall take Care that the Laws be truthfully done, and shall Name all the Ealdors of the Wedded Burghs.
Share the Fourth - Unskilling
The Reeve, Other-Reeve and all burghish Ealdors of the Wedded Burghs, shall be taken away from Ealdory on Faulting for, and Guilting of, Switchery, Unfannig, or other high Switches and Unbecomings.
Limb the Third - The Doom
Share the First - Might of Doom
The Might of Doom of the Wedded Burghs, shall be clothed upon one High Doom, and in such Nether Halls as the Wittangemot may from time to time land and found. The Doom-setters, both of the high and nether Halls, shall hold their Ealdories while they last well in all things, and shall, at some Times, unfan for their Hearsomeness a Fee which shall not shrink while they last in Ealdory.
Share the Second - Cor in Thing, First Doomsay.
In all Befalling enfolding Heralds, other port Beadles and Leaches, and those in which a Burgh shall have Word, the high Doom shall have First Doomsay. In all the other Befalling before kenned, the high Doom shall have the beggar's Doomsay, both as to Law and Truth, with such Withholdings, and under such Rules as the Wittangemot shall make.
The Cor of all Switches, except in Befalling of Faulting, shall be by a Thing; and such Cor shall be held in the Burgh where the said Switches shall have been done; but when not done within any Burgh, the Cor shall be at such Tun or Tuns as the Wittangemot may by Law have righted.
Share the Third - Switchdom
Switchdom against the Wedded Burghs, shall withhold only raising War against them, or in falling to their Foes, giving them Help and Ease. No Man shall be guilted of Switchdom unless on the Witting of two Witnesses to the same outright Deed, or on Andetting in open Hall.
The Wittangemot shall have might to call the Pain of Switchdom, but no Word of Switchdom shall work Illness in Blood, or Swallowing but while the Life of the Man worded.
Limb the Fourth - the Burghs
Share the First - Each Burgh to Worth all Others
Full belief and Bidding shall be given in each Burgh to the port Deeds, Kenning, and doom Forwarding of every other Burgh. And the Wittangemot may by well-wear Laws forewrite the Way in which such Deeds, Kenning and Forwarding shall be shewen, and the Strength thereof.
Section 2 - Burghers, Outgiving
The Burghs of each Burgh shall be gilded to all Rights and Safe-wards of Burghs in the sundry Burghs. A Man faulted in any Burgh with Switchdom, Witetheny , or other Switch, who shall flee from Doom, and be found in another Burgh, shall on asking of the doing Might of the Burgh from which he fled, be fanned, to be taken to the State having Doomsay of the Switch.
Section 3 - New Burghs
New burghs may be andetted by the Wittangemot into this Weoroth ; but no new Burghs shall be shaped or built within the Doomsay of any other Burgh; nor any Burgh be shaped by the Gathering of two or more Burghs, or shares of Burghs, without the Gemote of the Lawmoots of the Burghs longing as well as of the Wittangemot.
The Wittangemot shall have Might to upstand and make all needful Rules and Righting longing the Land or other Feoh belonging to the Wedded Burghs; and nothing in this Ware shall be so understood as to Foredoom any Spells of the Wedded Burghs, or of any one Burgh.
Share the Fourth - Wellwherewealthy Reaching
The Wedded Burghs shall plight to every Burgh in this Weoroth a Wellwherewealthy Shape of Reaching, and shall ward each of them against In-wading; and on Begging of the Lawmoot, or of the Doing (when the Lawmoot cannot be gathered) against home Ingang.
Limb the Fifth - Gimming
The Wittangemot, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it needed, shall offer Gimmings to this Ware, or, on the Ask of the Lawmoots of two thirds of the sundry Burghs, shall call a Gathering for offering Gimmings, which, in either befalling, shall be hale to all Wills and Goals, as part of this Ware, when gemited by the Lawmoots of three fourths of the sundry Burghs, or by Gatherings in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Way of gemitting may be offered by the Wittangemot; Given that no Gimming which may be made before to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Way change the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Share of the first Limb; and that no Burgh, without its Gemote, shall be sickened of its even Casting in the Eldercy.
Limb the Sixth - Loans, Upper-hand, Oaths
All loans taken and gemotes wedded, before the Thaging of this Ware, shall be as strong against the Wedded Burghs under this Ware, as under the Bond.
This Ware, and the Laws of the Wedded Burghs which shall be made in Following it; and all Modesomness made, or which shall be made, under the Might of the Wedded Burghs, shall be the high Law of the Land; and the Doom-setters in every Burgh shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Ware or Laws of any Burgh to the against notwithstanding.
The Elders and Standmen before minded, and the Guilders of the sundry Burghish Lawmoots, and all doing and Doom Ealdors, both of the Wedded Burghs and of the sundry Burghs, shall be bound by Oath or Troth, to full-last this Ware; but no godly Sweetlong shall ever be needed as a Need to any Ealdory or post Trust under the Wedded Burghs.
Limb the Seventh - Gemitting
The Gemitting of the Gatherings of nine Burghs, shall be Enough for the Founding of this Ware between the Burghs so gemitting the Same.
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Done in Gathering by the One-voiced Gemite of the Burghs witness the Seventeenth Day of Harvest-month in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Freedom of the United States of America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto underwritten our Names.
George Washington - Reeve and herald from Virginia
New Hampshire - John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts - Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King
Connecticut - Wm Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman
New York - Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey - Wil Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton
Pennwood- Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Simonson, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Earl Morris
Delaware - George Read, Gunning Bedford the Younger, John Dickinson, Richard Low, Jacob Broom
Maryland - James of Henry, Daniel of Hollowed Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll
Virginia - John Blair, James Madison Jr.
North Carolina - Wm Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson
South Carolina - J. Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth of Pinckney, Charles of Pinckney, Pierce Knight
Georgia - William Few, Abraham Baldwin
Attest: William Jackson, Secretary
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