If we reflect on the nature of the wergeld system, we shall see how difficult it would be to apply a penal form of slavery in default of payment within a tribe or in any definite locality. Wergeld was essentially a ‘diffused’ penalty, involving a large number of debtors, any one of whom could, equally with the murderer, be sold as a slave at the command of tribal authorities. To enslave a distant relative[92] of the murderer for debt would constitute a severe form of collective punishment: and it is much more probable that, in default of payment on the part of any individual family, the deficiency would have been contributed by the rest of the clan.[93] It is improbable that an entire family or gwely would have been so poor and needy that they could not by a series of instalments have discharged the wergeld debt. In a law of Henry I. it is decreed[94] that ‘Amends being set going (_i.e._ first deposits being paid) the rest of the wergeld shall be paid during a term to be fixed by the _Sapientes_.’ And we must not ignore the role of the _phratores_, or of the _congildones_, who were selected from neighbouring clans, and who might have to contribute in certain emergencies. Thus, in another law of Henry I. we read[95]: ‘If the slayer has no maternal (or paternal) relations the _congildones_ shall pay half, and for half he shall flee or pay.’ In ancient tribal Ireland an instance of bondage is related in the _Senchus Mor_,[96] but failure to pay occurs only in the case of an illegitimate son, who would normally have no real share in family property. There is here, indeed, a sort of ‘collectivity.’ Six men of the tribe of Conn of the Hundred Battles, including four brothers and an illegitimate nephew, had slain a brother who was under the protection of another tribal chieftain. A compensation was demanded, which is not so much wergeld as a fine payable to the chief. Five of the six men were able to pay, but the illegitimate murderer could not pay: so his mother was handed over to the tribe as a bondwoman in pledge. However, the fact that the slain man had been adopted by an outside tribe, and that the money was paid to the chief, forbid the conclusion that money was paid for murder within the kindred in tribal Ireland or that kin-slaying was normally atoned for by bondage in the family of the victim.