How did the number 9 appear in Anglo-Saxon legal customs?

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In Anglo-Saxon and related cultural contexts, the number 9 frequently appeared in legal customs as a specific unit of measurement or a threshold for defining offenses.

For instance, early inhabitants of Wales utilized nine steps as a legal measurement for distance. This was applied in cases such as dog bites, where a dog could be killed if it was found nine steps away from its owner’s house. Additionally, the number served as a legal threshold for violence; an assault involving nine people was classified as a genuine attack.1

Beyond these specific measurements, the number 9 also functioned as a temporal limit in other historical legal frameworks, such as in German law, where land ownership rights were considered terminated after the ninth generation.1