The clause does not mention to whom the payments are to be made, whether to the læt himself or, as in the case of the freedman, to his late owner or lord. But the payments are not called leodgelds as are the wergelds of freemen.

Looking to the payments themselves they are graduated for three classes of læts. There were also, under Norse custom, three classes of leysings gradually growing by successive steps towards a higher grade of freedom as kindreds grew up around them and became more and more nearly perfect till at last the ninth generation from the first freedman became fully free. Why may not the three grades of Kentish læts have been doing the same?

Let us compare the amounts of the payments for the slaying of the three classes of Kentish læts with those for the three classes of Norse leysings.

We have seen over and over again that the Kentish scilling regarded as twenty sceatts was an ore or a Roman ounce of silver. Therefore the Kentish payments, stated in ounces of silver, were as follows:—

The Norse ore was also in wheat-grains a Roman ounce of silver. The wergelds of the three classes of leysings in the Norse laws were as under:—

So that the wergelds of the three classes of Kentish læts corresponded exactly in amount with those of the three classes of Norse leysings, when reckoned both in silver.

We may further compare these payments for the Kentish læts with those for the freedman of the nearly contemporary Bavarian laws. They are stated in gold solidi of three tremisses, and the Kentish solidus was of only two tremisses. We have seen that the Bavarian freedman was paid for with forty solidi, i.e. sixty Kentish scillings. The payment thus corresponded with that for the Kentish læt of the second class.

These correspondences are unexpected and very significant, but the significance is made still more important by the clause in the Laws of Wihtræd describing the position of the newly made freedman under Kentish custom. The description of his position might almost be taken as a description of the ‘frialgiafi’ or newly made leysing of the Norse laws. Under Kentish law the freedman was to be folkfree, but ‘the freedom-giver was to keep the heritage and wergeld and mund of his family, be he over the march wherever he will.’ This was, as we have seen, almost exactly the position of the Norse leysing before he had made his freedom ale. He had as yet no kindred to swear and to fight for him. He was still under the mund and protection of his lord. His descendants could only obtain the protection of a kindred and become wholly free from the thyrmsl of the lord, when in the course of generations a kindred had grown up gradually around them.

So too, as we have seen, under the Bavarian laws the freedman’s wergeld went to his lord.[312] Under the Frisian law the wergeld of the litus went to his lord.[313] Under Ripuarian law even the ‘homo denarialis’—the freedman who became a Frank with a full wergeld—was recognised as having at first no kindred. If he had no children, his property went to the fisc. And it was not till the third generation that his descendants had full rights of inheritance.[314] We have already found abundant evidence of the continued force of tribal custom and tribal instincts in regard to the importance of kindred while considering the meaning and function of the hyndens in connection with the twelve-hynde and twy-hynde classes of the Anglo-Saxon laws. These remarkable correspondences between the position held by the læts in Kent and that of the leysings and freedmen and liti of the Continental laws, without our making too much of them, may fairly be taken as additional evidence of the tenacity of tribal custom in these matters.[315]

VII. THE AMOUNT OF THE KENTISH WERGELDS.

Once more we return to the amount of the wergelds of the Kentish eorl and freeman.

We have seen reason to believe that the payments of 300 and 100 scillings of the laws of Hlothære and Eadric were half-wergelds, and that the full wergelds were 600 and 200 scillings.

If they may be so considered they are at once put on line with the Frankish wergelds. The threefold wergeld of the eorl becomes evidently due to his noble birth or official position. And, if the Kentish and Frankish solidi had been alike, the similarity of the wergelds would have been complete.

The wergelds of the Frankish group of laws were found to be as follows:—

In all these cases the wergeld of the Royal official or person in high rank is threefold that of the liber or ingenuus.[316]

Confining attention now to the position of the Kentish freeman, further confirmation of the view that his wergeld was 200 Kentish scillings may be derived from a comparison of the King’s mundbyrd with his wergeld, and the corresponding Continental payments pro fredo with the wergelds of the liber and ingenuus of the Continental laws.

The Kentish mundbyrd of 50 Kentish scillings was one fourth of the Kentish freeman’s wergeld if 200 Kentish scillings.

The Mercian mundbyrd of five pounds of silver was one fourth of the Mercian wergeld of 1200 scillings of four pence, or twenty pounds.

The Wessex mundbyrd of five pounds would be one fourth of the Wessex wergeld proper if the latter might be looked upon as the same as the Mercian with the mundbyrd added.[317]

The Alamannic and Bavarian payments pro fredo of 40 solidi were one fourth of the Alamannic and Bavarian wergeld of 160 solidi.

And Brunner[318] and others consider that, although the payment pro fredo was sometimes an extra payment, the 200 solidi of the Frankish wergeld equalled 160 solidi with one fourth added pro fredo.

Now, if instead of holding the Kentish freeman’s wergeld to be 200 Kentish scillings we were to take it to be the medume wergeld of 100 scillings, we should destroy the correspondence of the King’s mundbyrd with the wergeld, and make the mundbyrd half the wergeld instead of a quarter: unlike what it was in the other laws. This hardly seems a likely supposition.

We get still further evidence if we compare the payments for the eye, hand, and foot in the Kentish and Continental laws. We have seen that the Kentish payment was 50 scillings, i.e. the same as the King’s mundbyrd and one fourth of the wergeld of 200 scillings. In the Alamannic and Bavarian laws and in those of the Chamavi the payment for these, like the payment pro fredo, was one quarter of the freeman’s wergeld. In the Frankish laws it was one half. But the reason of this is, not that either the Frankish payment pro fredo or the wergeld is less than in other laws, but that the payment for the eye, hand, and foot is greater. The Frankish payment for the eye, hand, or foot was 100 solidi of three tremisses, i.e. half as much again as the Kentish freeman’s wergeld would be if only 100 Kentish scillings of two tremisses; which again seems unlikely.

At first sight the Wessex payments for the eye, hand, and foot present an anomaly. The Wessex twelve-hynde wergeld of 1200 Wessex scillings of five pence at a ratio of 1:10 corresponds, as we have seen, with the Frankish freeman’s wergeld of 200 solidi. The payment for the eye, hand, and foot in King Alfred’s Laws is 66⅔ Wessex scillings, i.e. only one eighteenth of the twelve-hynde wergeld. But the explanation no doubt is that in the Laws of King Alfred the payments for injuries are stated for the twyhynde-man’s grade, those for the eye, hand, and foot being one third of the twyhyndeman’s wergeld of 200 Wessex scillings.

On the whole, therefore, these considerations seem to strengthen the supposition that the Kentish freeman’s wergeld was 200 Kentish scillings. That the Kentish wergeld should differ from that of Mercia and Wessex need not surprise us, seeing that we started with the warning that we should find it so as regards both the barones and villani. To the writer of the so-called Laws of Henry I. the eorl was no doubt the baro and the freeman or ceorl the villanus of Norman phraseology. And we need not wonder at his confusion if he had nothing but the laws to guide him. It is necessary, however, to look at the question of the wergelds from a broader point of view than his could be.

It must not be forgotten that the Continental wergelds of the Merovingian period were all stated in gold solidi. The first emigrants into Britain must have known this perfectly well. Kentish moneyers coined gold tremisses, and when they afterwards coined silver it was in silver tremisses of the same weight, which earned the name in England of ‘sceatts.’

Any exact comparison of English and Continental wergelds must obviously be dependent upon the ratio between gold and silver.

The Kentish scilling of two gold tremisses at 1:10 was reckoned in the Laws of Ethelbert as equal to 20 sceatts—i.e. to the Roman ounce—and the wergeld, if of 200 scillings, was thus, as we have seen, a wergeld in silver of 200 ounces or 4000 sceatts. We have seen also that Archbishop Egbert claimed for his priests a wergeld of 200 ounces of silver, which thus would accord exactly with the Kentish wergeld of 200 scillings. It might almost seem that he may have consulted his colleague the Archbishop of Canterbury and fixed his clerical demand in accordance with the Kentish wergeld rather than with that of Wessex or Mercia.

Nor was there anything unnatural or abnormal in the Kentish wergeld of 200 ounces of silver, inasmuch as 200 Roman ounces of silver at a ratio of 1:10 would equal the Mina Italica of twenty Roman ounces or of two ancient Roman pounds of gold.

We may therefore with confidence, but without claiming certainty, fairly state the Kentish wergelds in Kentish scillings and sceatts, thus:—

And when put together in this way the proportion between the wergeld of the freeman and that of the læts becomes important. In the Norse laws the leysing’s wergeld was one sixth that of the hauld or odalman. In the Bavarian and Saxon laws the wergeld of the litus was one fourth that of the freeman. Anything like these proportions in Kent would make a wergeld as low as 100 scillings for the freeman very improbable.

Lastly, perhaps it may be fair to the reader to recur once more to the question of the Kentish scilling. If any doubt should remain as to whether we are right in regarding the sceatt as the silver coin of that name, twenty of which went to the Roman ounce until it was superseded by the penny of Offa and Alfred, surely that doubt must now be dispelled. For if, according to the view of Schmid and others, the sceatt were to be taken as a farthing or quarter of a sceatt, the correspondence of Kentish with Continental wergelds and payments pro fredo would be altogether destroyed. The eorl’s triple wergeld at a ratio of 1:10 would be only one sixth (and if 300 scillings only one twelfth) of that of the Frankish noble or official, while the Kentish freeman’s wergeld would be reduced to one sixth (or if 100 scillings to only one twelfth) of that of the Continental liber or ingenuus.

One perhaps must not say that such a result would be impossible. But would it be a likely one? We should have to suppose that the Jutish chieftain, perfectly familiar with the Continental wergeld of the freeman as 200 or 160 gold solidi, equated by long tradition with the round number of 100 head of cattle, upon settlement in Kent reduced the wergeld of the freeman to one sixth or one twelfth of what it was in the country he came from. From what we know of the tenacity of tribal custom everywhere, especially as regards the amount of the wergelds, it is difficult to conceive of his doing so.

VIII. RESULT OF THE KENTISH EVIDENCE.

We are now in a position to take a broader view of the wergelds, Continental, Kentish, Wessex, and Mercian.

To the incidental mention of the fact that the Kentish freeman’s wergeld, if 200 Kentish scillings, equalled the gold Mina Italica may be added the further incident that it was equal to 100 ‘sweetest cows’ of the Alamannic laws. Whether accidental coincidences or not, these facts bring us back to the point with which this inquiry started, viz. the widespread normal wergeld of 100 head of cattle and its very general traditional equation with a gold mina.

The main facts elicited as to the amount of the wergelds in the course of this inquiry are these.

At the date of the Kentish Laws and generally during the seventh century we find three wergelds in use in England for the freeman:—

And on the Continent we find the two wergelds:—

Now, in the fairly contemporary laws of the Ripuarian Franks, and of the Burgundians, the traditional values of animals we have found to be stated as follows:—

And in the nearly contemporary Alamannic laws the traditional values were:—

Within the range of these variations in the ratio between gold and silver, and in the local value of animals, there seems to be ample room and reason for the variations in the money values of the wergelds.

(1) 100 oxen of 6 tremisses (i.e. 600 tremisses) equal the Frankish wergeld of 200 gold solidi, and at 1:10 the Wessex wergeld of 6000 sceatts.

(2) A long hundred of 120 cows of 4 tremisses (i.e. 480 tremisses) would equal the wergeld of 160 gold solidi, and at 1:10 the Mercian wergeld of 4800 sceatts.

(3) 100 cows at 4 tremisses (i.e. 400 tremisses) make the Kentish wergeld of (if we are right) 200 Kentish scillings of 2 tremisses, and at 1:10, 4000 sceatts. If we change the ratio to 1:12, then a Kentish wergeld of 100 cows of 4 tremisses would in silver equal the Mercian wergeld of 4800 sceatts. In other words, the difference between the Kentish and Mercian wergeld may be explained, either as one between 100 and 120 cows, or, the number of cows remaining at 100, between the ratios of 1:10 and 1:12.

There is thus in these fairly contemporary values of Western Europe, in the seventh century, or within the Merovingian period, so obviously room for the variations in the wergelds that, whether as to origin the differences may be of historical interest or not, at any rate for our present purpose we are fairly warned by the general coincidence in the wergelds not to make too much of the differences.

The Kentish laws, therefore, lead us with some confidence to recognise the practical identity of the wergeld of the Kentish freeman with that, not of the Wessex ceorl, but of the twelve-hyndeman.

We have been led cautiously step by step to this result, and, whether the problem raised by it be capable of solution or not, it is important that it should be fairly stated and considered. Even if the Kentish freeman’s wergeld was only 100 Kentish scillings, it would more nearly correspond with the six-hyndeman’s wergeld than with that of the Wessex ceorl. On the other hand, the wergelds of the Kentish læts are very fairly on a level with that of the Wessex ceorl. Taking an average between the second and third class of læts the correspondence would be exact.[319]

If, therefore, the wergeld of the Kentish freeman may be regarded as practically equivalent to that of the Continental liber or ingenuus on the one hand, and to that of the twelve-hyndeman of the Anglo-Saxon laws on the other hand, and if that of the Kentish læt was like that of the Norse leysing and of the twy-hyndeman, then once more it becomes natural and right, and in accordance with ancient custom, that in the Compact between Alfred and Guthrum the twelve-hyndeman should be made ‘equally dear’ with the Norse hauld, and so with the liber or ingenuus of the Continental laws, while the twy-hyndeman should be held ‘equally dear’ with the Danish leysing.

CHAPTER XV.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS.

Before concluding this Essay it may be well in a final chapter to consider its results in their bearing upon the conditions of early Anglo-Saxon society, and especially with regard to the division of classes and the character of the holdings.

The object has been to approach these difficult questions from the point of view of tribal custom.

The main clue to an understanding of the division of classes has been the amount of the wergelds.

The trouble taken to arrive at a correct knowledge of the currencies in which the wergelds were paid, tedious as it may have seemed to the reader, will not have been thrown away if it has led to the recognition of the fact that there was a very general correspondence in the amount of the wergelds tenaciously adhered to by the tribes of Western Europe, whether remaining in their old homes or settled in newly conquered countries. The amount of the wergelds was not seemingly a matter of race. Cymric and German customs were singularly similar.

If the Irish eric fine formed an exception, Irish tribal custom nevertheless had many things in common with Cymric and German custom in other respects.

It was from a study of the wergelds and the rights and liability of relatives in their receipt and payment that some idea was gained of the solidarity of the kindred under tribal custom. And this solidarity of the kindred was found to be closely connected with the family character of tribal land-holdings, of which the Cymric gwely was a typical example. Where direct evidence of this family element was wanting the liability of the kindred for the wergeld remained as an indication that it once had existed.

In reviewing the evidence of these matters and attempting to bring the results to a focus, we begin with the fact that with comparatively few exceptions the normal wergeld of the full or typical freeman was everywhere so large—200 gold solidi, the heavy mina of gold, traditionally representing 100 head of cattle. This wergeld was too large by far for the individual slayer to pay, and possible only as a payment from one group of kindred to another.

We have seen reason to infer from the Kentish, Wessex, and Mercian wergelds that the Anglo-Saxon tribes shared in these traditions, and, so to speak, brought their wergelds with them into Britain. And we have found that Anglo-Saxon custom as regards the wergelds was substantially similar to that of the Continental tribes.

From Beowulf we learned that, as there could be no feud within the kindred, a homicide within the kindred could not be avenged or compounded for. There was no galanas or wergeld in such a case under either Cymric or German custom, and evidence was found in the so-called Laws of Henry I. that it had been so also under Anglo-Saxon custom. Up to the time of the Norman Conquest the punishment of parricide was practically left by the laws to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church (supra, p. 335).

The principle which required both paternal and maternal relations to join in the payment and receipt of wergelds, and nearly always in the proportion of two thirds and one third, was also common to Cymric and German tribes. This principle depended upon a view of marriage likewise common to both. A blood relationship was established as regards children of a marriage, while husband and wife for many purposes remained in their own kindreds. There being no blood relationship between husband and wife, the husband’s kindred alone were liable for his crimes and the wife’s alone for her crimes, and neither the husband nor the wife received any portion of the other’s wergeld or was liable for his or her homicides. Such was the custom under the Cymric codes and the laws of the Bretts and Scots, and Anglo-Saxon custom as described in the so-called Laws of Henry I. was similar.

The tribal feeling which allowed tribesmen and strangers to live side by side under their own laws, and made the Salic and Ripuarian Franks award a full wergeld to tribesmen of allied German tribes, while it gave only a half wergeld to the Gallo-Roman possessor who was not of their blood, was, it would seem, brought with the invading tribes into Britain.

Danish and English tribesmen were allowed to live side by side under their own laws and acknowledged as ‘equally dear,’ with a similar wergeld, while, at all events in the cases which come under notice, complete strangers in blood were awarded only a half wergeld as in the Continental laws.

We have not attempted to settle the question how far there was a Romano-British population left in the towns, but we have found incidental traces and hints that in Northumbria, Wessex, and Mercia there were ‘wilisc’ men—Welsh or British—who had only a half wergeld, being treated as strangers both in this respect and also as regards the substitution of the ordeal for the oaths of kindred (p. 403).

The principle that a man who could not bring to his protection the oath of his kinsmen must be brought to the ordeal was one of widely extended tribal custom. And it was emphasised by the adoption of the ordeal as a Christian ceremony solemnly performed in the churches under both Frankish and Anglo-Saxon law.

There can be little doubt that in the solidarity of the kindred under tribal custom we have to do with the strongest instinct which everywhere moulded tribal society. So far as it had its way and was not confronted by more potent forces it must have almost necessarily ruled such matters as the division of classes, the occupation of land, and the modes of settlement.

When we inquire into the grades of society under tribal custom they seem everywhere to have their roots in the principles of blood relationship. A man who has no kindred to protect him needs and seeks the protection of a chieftain or lord. By the force of tribal gravitation he sinks into the dependent condition of living upon another’s land.

Whether he be a freedman who has risen from the rank of the theow or thrall, or a free tribesman of low position, or one of a conquered race, or a stranger immigrant, and whether he be cottier or the holder of the typical yardland, until in the course of generations a kindred has grown up around him, he remains in the dependent condition. He is indeed a freeman as compared with the theow or thrall, but when Alfred and Guthrum make their compact and agree that Dane and English shall be reckoned as equally dear at the normal wergeld of the full freeman it is not of the dependent class they are thinking. They give to this class and to the Danish leysing or newly made freedman a twy-hynde instead of a twelve-hynde wergeld.

It might at first sight be supposed that this twy-hynde condition of the dependent class in England, so far as it may have included Anglo-Saxons, must have been the result of degradation in social status between the first settlements and the time of King Alfred, but we have sought in vain for evidence of an earlier higher position in the Laws of King Ine. And, on the whole, even when regarded solely from a tribal point of view, it does not seem unlikely that strangers in blood and freedmen and dependent followers of the conquering chieftains should find themselves after conquest and settlement in the economic condition of tenants and gafolgeldas on the lands of protecting lords. Nor would it be strange that, when in a new country and under other influences this uniform dependent economic condition had once become a general fact, the whole class, in spite of variety of origins, should find itself marked by a twy-hynde wergeld.

It does not follow, however, that because in the compact between Alfred and Guthrum the twy-hynde class were reckoned as equally dear with the Norse leysing that the Anglo-Saxon ‘ceorl who sits on gafol-land’ was generally in as low a social position as the Norse newly made freedman. It is enough that according to the evidence, he was a dependent tenant, let us say, under the lordship of a twelve-hynde man or if settled upon royal demesne of some gesith or official of the king.

Still it may be well to look once again at the position of the Norse leysing, because, after all, it is with the leysing that the Anglo-Saxon twy-hynde gafolgelda was equated in a compact made after King Alfred’s victory, and so when the two chieftains seemed to be treating on equal terms. Surely King Alfred was not intending to degrade the Anglo-Saxon dependent class. Presumably he was making a good bargain for them.

The early Norse laws were settled long after the date of this compact, upon the conversion of South Norway, and, as in other cases, they were framed with the express purpose of making room in the legal system for the Christian Church and so in some sense with its sanction. And yet so deep was the gulf between classes even then that a certain portion of the churchyard was set apart for leysings, and in no case were they to be buried in the portion reserved for classes above them. And if after giving his freedom-ale and so attaining the first step in freedom and independence the leysing should die leaving destitute children whose support ought not to be thrown back upon his lord, we have seen that the way out of the difficulty was to dig a grave in the churchyard into which the leysing’s children were to be placed and left to starve to death, the last survivor being the only one which the lord thenceforth had to maintain.[320] This was the position of the leysing at the bottom of the ladder of freedom.

But we found the leysing of the Norse laws rising by steps into greater freedom and better social position. And the process throughout was founded upon the gradual growth of kindred. It was the lack of kindred to swear for them and defend them which placed them low in the social scale, and it was the gradual growth of kindred generation after generation which marked the steps of their rise into better social position with higher wergelds.

When we turn to the Anglo-Saxon laws we seem to detect similar tribal principles originally at work but with differences which may very probably be referred to the circumstances attendant upon conquest and settlement in Britain.

The law of tribal gravitation here as elsewhere, aided, no doubt, by other potent forces, had been at work placing the man with an imperfect kindred in a dependent position at the bottom of the social ladder.

And it is important to note that at first the middle rungs of the ladder by which a man could climb out of the dependent position seem to have been present here as in Norway. The evidence is scanty, but sufficiently important.

From the Kentish laws the presence of stepping-stones into greater freedom may be inferred in the case of the three classes of læts with their rising wergelds. And in a precious fragment of ancient custom happily rescued from oblivion we found evidence that, originally at all events, there had been a way out of the ceorl’s twy-hynde condition at the fourth generation of landholding connected with payment of gafol to the king’s utware and direct service to the king. But we recognised that the collector of the fragment looked longingly back to ancient custom, speaking of it in the past tense, as if it was no longer in force.[321]

It would obviously not be wise to trust solely to the negative evidence of the silence of the laws, but in this case the silence seems to confirm the evidence of the fragment. For the pathetic tone of the fragment finds an echo in the fact that all traces of the middle rungs in the ladder seem to have vanished from the later laws. There is no mention in Ine’s laws or in Alfred’s of there being or having been several grades of freedmen or læts. Even the half wergeld of the six-hynde stranger who has risen to the possession of five hides silently disappears after King Alfred’s time. From whatever cause, so far as the evidence goes, the twy-hynde class seems to have become a homogeneous class in which, in spite of different origins, distinctions were merged in a common economic condition. Differences of origin were perhaps forgotten as the result of comradeship in the long struggle against the Danish foe.

We thus seem to be driven to recognise the width and to some extent the bridgelessness, already in King Alfred’s time if not in King Ine’s, of the gulf between the position of the twelve-hynde landed class and that of the twy-hynde dependent class of gafolgeldas and geburs who were tenants on their land.

It seems probable that, though technically and really free in the sense of not being thralls, the twy-hynde class, broadly speaking, may have found themselves very early, if not from the first, placed in an economic condition of service and servitude, including work as well as gafol, which by the ultimate disappearance of the middle rungs of the ladder might very easily slide into what is loosely called the ‘serfdom’ of later times.

In the meantime we realise that the abjectness of this semi-servile condition may be very easily exaggerated by modern associations with the terms ‘service’ and ‘serfdom.’

It is when we turn from the twy-hynde class to the position of the class above them, of gesithcund and twelve-hynde men, that we learn that a part at least of the risk of misunderstanding may lie in the difference between the tribal notion of service and freedom and the more modern one.

What, then, has tribal custom to teach us as to the position and services of the twelve-hynde class?

Reverting once more to the compact between Alfred and Guthrum, Dane and English are to be equally dear at eight half-marks of gold. The Englishman, without any limiting adjective, is the twelve-hynde man. And he is put on a level with the Danish typical free landholder, the hauld or odalman of the Norse laws, whose wergeld under Norse law was that of the typical freeman everywhere—equivalent to the normal wergeld of 200 gold solidi, the mina of gold, the traditional wergeld of 100 head of cattle. It was six times that of the Norse leysing, just as the twelve-hyndeman’s wergeld in England was six times that of the ‘ceorl who sits on gafol land.’

The English twelve-hynde man is therefore put on a level with the Norse odaller or typical landholder. And so, as we have seen, the ceorl who rose by the middle rungs of the ladder into the twelve-hynde position had inter alia to become a landholder of 5 hides, and his family became gesithcund only after the landholding had continued to the fourth generation. His great-grandchildren then became gesithcund with a twelve-hynde wergeld.

The twelve-hyndemen were therefore landholders, surrounded, in principle at least if not always in practice, by a kindred. But what kind of a landholding was it?

Approaching the question strictly from a tribal point of view, the solidarity of the kindred involved in the payment and receipt of wergelds would certainly suggest that those who had a right to receive and the obligation to pay held a position in their kindred quite different from that of the modern individual owner of land.

The analogy of Welsh and Irish and Salic and Norse and Scanian tribal custom would lead us to infer that the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England must have brought with them traditions of tribal or family ownership more or less of the type of the Cymric gwely, though doubtless modified by emigration and settlement in a new country.

After all that has been said, traditions and perhaps actual examples of the individual ownership of the ‘Romanus possessor,’ and, still more likely, actual experience of the Roman type of landed estates, may have survived in Britain from the period of the Roman occupation, and the Anglo-Saxon settlers may easily have been influenced in the matter of landholding by what as conquerors they came to supplant. But they can hardly have wholly cast off their own tribal traditions and instincts. The continued payment and receipt of wergelds show that they did not. Even, to take an extreme case, if they came to Britain as single settlers having left their kinsmen behind them, still kindreds would gradually grow up around their descendants in the new country. And tribal custom left to itself would give to them landed rights, quite different from those of the individual owner. But the interval, apart from other outside influences, may well have subjected tribal custom to a strain.

From the point of view of this interval it may not be unreasonable to revert to the clauses of King Alfred’s laws on ‘kinless men’ and the Norman precedent, that the king was to take the place of the missing maternal kindred and of advocate for a Norman if he had no other.[322]

Unless, therefore, the twelve-hynde settler was surrounded by a full kindred in the new country, he must, according to his own tribal custom, have found himself much more of an individual than he was used to be, and therefore more dependent upon the protection of his chieftain or king.

We must not, on the one hand, conceive of the twelve-hynde settler as having all at once adopted the independent position of the Roman ‘possessor,’ though circumstances may have sometimes severed him as completely from his ‘parentilla’ as the ceremony of the Salic law. Nor can we, on the other hand, conceive of him always as a tribesman surrounded by his kindred. He may evidently, on the one hand, be released from many of the trammels involved in membership of a kindred, but, on the other hand, he is thrown more than ever under conditions of service to the king.