The most minute regulations prevailed on the subject of injury to women. Under the Salic law[353] for instance, if a free man struck a free women on the fingers or hand, he had to pay fifteen _solidi_; if he struck her arm, thirty _solidi_; if above her elbow, thirty-five _solidi_; if he hit her breast, forty-five _solidi_. The penalties for murdering a free woman were also elaborated on the basis of her value to the state as a bearer of children. By the same Salic law[354] injury to a pregnant woman resulting in her death merited a fine of seven hundred _solidi_; but two hundred was deemed sufficient for murder of one after her time for bearing children had passed. Similarly, for killing a free woman after she had begun to have children the transgressor paid six hundred _solidi_; but for murdering an unmarried freeborn girl only two hundred. The murder of a free woman was punished usually by a fine (_wergeld_) equal to twice the amount demanded for a free man "because," as the law of the Bavarians has it,[355] "a woman can not defend herself with arms. But if, in the boldness of her heart (per audaciam cordis sui), she shall have resisted and fought like a man, there shall not be a double penalty, but only the recompense usual for a man [160 _solidi_]." Fines were not paid to the state, but to the injuried parties or, if these did not survive, to the nearest kin. If the fine could not be paid, then might death be meted to the guilty.[356] Another peculiar feature of the Germanic law was the appeal to God to decide a moot point by various ordeals. For example, by the laws of the Angles and Werini, if a woman was accused of murdering her husband, she would ask a male relative to assert her innocence by a solemn oath[357] or, if necessary, by fighting for her as her champion in the lists. God was supposed to give the victory to the champion who defended an innocent party. If she could find no champion, she was permitted to walk barefoot over nine red-hot ploughshares[358]; and if she was innocent, God would not, of course, allow her to suffer any injury in the act. [Sidenote: Women in slavery.] Perhaps a word on the status of women in slavery among the Germanic nations will not be out of place. The new nations looked upon a slave as a chattel, much as the Romans did. If a wrong was done a slave woman, her master received a recompense from the aggressor, but she did not, for to hold property was denied her. But we may well believe that the great value which the Church put on chastity and conjugal fidelity rendered the slave woman less exposed to the brutal passions of her lord than had been the case under the Empire. Thus, by a law of King Liutprand, a master who committed adultery with the wife of a slave was compelled to free both[359]; and the Visigot[360] inflicted fifty lashes and a fine of twenty _solidi_ upon the man who used violence to another man's slave woman.