[63] The man who had "thrown away his shield" was the coward who had fled from the field of battle. How the Germans universally regarded such a person appears in the _Germania_ of Tacitus, Chap. 6 (see p. 25). To impute this ignominy to a man was a serious matter. [64] This was the so-called "triple wergeld." That is, the lives of men in the service of the king were rated three times as high as those of ordinary free persons. [65] Here is an illustration of the personal character of Germanic law. There is one law for the Frank and another for the Roman, though both peoples were now living side by side in Gaul. The price put upon the life of the Frankish noble who was in the king's service was 600 _solidi_ (Sec. 3), but that on the life of the Roman noble in the same service was but half that amount. The same proportion held for the ordinary freemen, as will be seen by comparing Secs. 1 and 6. [66] A leet was such a person as we in modern times commonly designate as a serf--a man only partially free. [67] This has been alleged to be the basis of the misnamed "Salic Law" by virtue of which no woman, in the days of the French monarchy, was permitted to inherit the throne. As a matter of fact, however, the exclusion of women from the French throne was due, not to this or to any other early Frankish principle, but to later circumstances which called for stronger monarchs in France than women have ordinarily been expected to be. The history of the modern "Salic Law" does not go back of the resolution of the French nobles in 1317 against the general political expediency of female sovereigns [see p. 420]. [68] The wergeld was the value put by the law upon every man's life. Its amount varied according to the rank of the person in question. The present section specifies how the wergeld paid by a murderer should be divided among the relatives of the slain man. [69] That is, to the king's treasury. CHAPTER V. THE ANGLES AND SAXONS IN BRITAIN 8. The Saxon Invasion (cir. 449) The Venerable Bede, the author of the passage given below, was born about 673 in Northumberland and spent most of his life in the Benedictine abbey of Jarrow on the Tyne, where he died in 735. He was a man of broad learning and untiring industry, famous in all parts of Christendom by reason of the numerous scholarly books that he wrote. The chief of these was his _Ecclesiastical History of the English People_, covering the period from the first invasion of Britain by Caesar (B.C. 55) to the year 731. In this work Bede dealt with many matters lying properly outside the sphere of church history, so that it is exceedingly valuable for the light which it throws on both the military and political affairs of the early Anglo-Saxons in Britain. As an historian Bede was fair-minded and as accurate as his means of information permitted.