THE SCENE: The law of King Canute lays out a detailed, and almost melancholy, punishment for treason which distinguished between treason on land or by sea.
THE TEXT: If any man should incur this abominable disgrace and be sentenced and condemned for making plans to betray his own lord, that man, they decreed, was to lose his life and all his property. To this end they ordained that, if the king were to accuse any man of treason, then he had to row across the sea until the oars were seen no longer, while they had to wait on the shore. So, while he was hidden far out to sea, they yelled three times as if giving a signal for battle, and it was decreed that the rights he enjoyed as a former confederate should be annulled. Furthermore, if he should dishonour himself by the aforesaid crime while in his native land and should be convicted of it, as above, the whole band of warriors was obliged to escort him to a dense wood and wait on the edge of the wood while he withdrew from them and pursued his course into some dark wilderness where he was unable to hear the din of their shouting. Then all his fellow-warriors are called together in a body, and with all their might they give their yell three times in unison. And after that they are held bound by this law: that whichever one of them meets that man thereafter and has the advantage of him by one man or one weapon at the least and does not attack him, then he shall incur the same penalty of ignominious discharge.
– The Law of the Retainers of Court, Sven Aggesen, 12th Century AD
