A fragment has also been preserved giving the _merchet_ or maiden-fee paid to the superior on the marriage of the daughter of a dependant. It is the _Amobr_ or _Gobr merch_ of the Welsh Laws:—‘According to the assize of the land of Scotland, the _merchet_ of every woman, whether she be a serf or mercantile, was one calf or three shillings. If she was the daughter of a freeman who was not lord of a township, her _merchet_ was one cow or six shillings. If the daughter of the son of a thane or of a _ochethiern_, two cows or twelve shillings. If the daughter of an earl, twelve cows.’[259] The fines which were paid for abstaining from attending the king’s hosting are preserved in the Statutes of Alexander the Second, where the following ‘record was made at St. Johnstoun or Perth before the king be all the “dempsteris” (judices) of Scotland in the seventh year of the king’s reign, or A.D. 1221,‘ after the king had been in hosting at Inverness against Donald Neilson.’ They thus declare that ‘of those that remained away from the host, the king shall have the forfeiture of the erlis if their thanes’ (that is, the earls’ thanes) ‘remained from the host; but how much that forfalture should be was not determined. Of all others which remained at home—that is to say, of the lands of bischopis, abbotis, baronis, knychtis, and thaynis which hold of the king, the king alone ought to have the forfalture; that is to say, of a thane, vi cows and a calf; of an _ochtyern_, xv sheep or vi shillings; but the king tharof shall have but the one half, and the thane or the knycht the other half. Of a _Carl_, a cow and a sheep; and they also are to be divided between the king and the thane or the knycht.’ ‘But when by the leave of the thane or the knicht they remained behind the king, he shall have all the forfalt. For no earl nor sergand of the erlis in the land of any man holding of the king ought to come to raise that default but the Erl of Fyffe, and he shall not come as earl but as the _Mair_ of the king of his rights to be raised within the earldom of Fyffe. Of the _Cairlis_, however, where the king and the earl divide betwixt them, the king and the earl shall have the one half and the thane the other half; but where the thane falls in forfalt it shall be divided between the king and the earl, as in the laws of King William is declared.’[260] The analogy between this arrangement and the system of fines for withdrawing from hosting contained in the Irish Laws will be apparent at once, and the different grades here given are the same as those in the code of David I., though adapted to a period when the thane appears as the vassal of the king or of the earl, and the _ochtyern_ as the vassal of the thane. [Sidenote: Ranks of bondmen.]