The transition from this last-named form of contract to a third and still more liberal one was easy and natural. Already in the tenth century the _beweddung_ had become a merely "formal contract," the _wed_, _wette_, _Treugelöbniss_, _wadium_, or _fides facta_ of the early laws.[870] In this case there was not even one-sided fulfilment through payment of the _arrha_, which in the form of wine-money was merely _promised_ to the guardian;[871] but instead the agreement or convention was accompanied by sureties to pay the _weotuma_ to the bride, and by a solemn act which created the obligation, and was therefore essential to the contract. Originally this solemn act consisted in giving and taking the straw (_festuca_) on the part of the bride and bridegroom. Instead of the straw, other objects were sometimes employed, such as a piece of cloth, an arrow, a number of gloves, and the like.[872] The oath or vow was also substituted for the solemn act; and, particularly in the later Middle Ages, the most popular symbol by which the contract was closed was a "weakened" form of the oath, the _Handschlag_, or hand-fasting, so famous in connection with the history of English "secret" or "irregular" marriages.[873] It should be noted that after the betrothal assumes the form of the _wed_, the _weotuma_ ceases to be of real importance and becomes a gift to the bride of little value; whereas now the object of real concern in the convention is the _morgengifu_, or _morning-gift_.[874] This was originally a small voluntary gift to the bride on the morning following the nuptials; but as the _weotuma_ decreased the morning-gift increased in importance. It became customary to grant them both in the same instrument at the betrothal; so, at length, they were merged and became a regular legal provision for the widow. Such was the Lombard _quarta_[875] and the Frankish _tertia_;[876] the Norman _douaire_, and the _dos ad ostium ecclesiae_ of Glanville, the predecessors of the modern English dower.[877] [870] The German _wette_ and Anglo-Saxon _wed_ are from the same root as _beweddung_. [871] SOHM, _Eheschliessung_, 30, 31, 317, note. [872] _Ibid._, 34, 35; SCHROEDER, _Rechtsgeschichte_, 293, 294. [873] On the oath and _Handschlag_, see SOHM, _op. cit._, 47-50; on hand-fasting, FRIEDBERG, _Eheschliessung_, 39 ff.