wergeld.’ How could the accused assert that he had paid it, how could the plaintiff deny that he had received it—if the actual wergeld were deposited in court before their very eyes? Thirdly, to say that the two talents would be given to the most convincing pleader is a very strange way of describing a judgment of guilty or not guilty on a charge of homicide. Thus the text of Homer refutes the theory of Lipsius. Maine[63] indicates the real function of the two talents in this court by showing that they served the same purpose as the _sacramentum_ or court-fee of Roman law. Assuming then that the court here described by Homer was a group of Pelasgian tribal chiefs or elders who could regularly be appealed to in such disputes, and who would also perform the functions of a murder-court if any person accused of homicide appealed to them to establish his innocence, we shall conclude our discussion by clearing up some minor points of difficulty. We cannot concur with Glotz[64] in the opinion that the result of the verdict is a matter of life or death for the murderer. He says ‘Il peut y avoir un jugement de condamnation entraînant l’esclavage ou la mort.’[64] But quick justice is not a characteristic of the wergeld-exile-slavery-death system. We have seen how[65] among the Welsh tribes wergeld was paid in fortnightly instalments: and we may suppose that failure to pay any one instalment would have been a common subject for litigation. In the laws of King Edmund of England (A.D. 940-946) a period of twelve months[66] was allowed for payment of wergeld—‘to prevent manifold fightings.’ In the laws of Henry I. the period was fixed by ‘Sapientes.’