Distinction of class appears most prominently in all the criminal laws for which the clergy are responsible. It was for the man of low estate, the slave, and for women, that the greatest atrocities were reserved. If the thief was a free woman she was to be thrown down a precipice or drowned (a precedent without doubt for dragging a witch through a pond), If the thief was a female slave, and had stolen from any but her own lord, eighty female slaves were to attend, each bearing a log of wood to pile the fire and burn the offender to death. Pike.--Hist. of Crime in England, 49-51.