every form came under the class of crimes against the religion of the State.’ Bury does not define precisely the time at which homicide became a religious offence, but from this and other references we assume that he regarded the period as post-Homeric. Thus he says[5]: ‘According to early custom which we find reflected in Homer, murder and manslaughter were not regarded as crimes against the State, but concerned exclusively the family of the slain man.... But gradually, as the worship of the souls of the dead and the deities of the underworld developed, the belief gained ground that he who shed blood was impure and needed cleansing.... This notion of manslaughter as a religious offence necessarily led to the interference of the State.’ We admit, of course, that there could not have been State trial before the State came into being; but the notion that there were no ‘trials’ before the days of ‘State trial’ is, we think, one of the delusions which modern minds have derived from the legacy of feudalism. Bury admits the existence of religious courts before the period of State courts, but he apparently forgets the courts of the clan, of the phratry, and of the tribe. It is frequently suggested that the right of sanctuary is the ultimate origin of the trials and negotiations which came to be associated with homicide. ‘Among the Greeks,’ says Gilbert,[6] ‘when blood was shed, the relatives of the murdered man usually set themselves to wreak vengeance on the murderer. If he did not quit the country immediately, he could only secure himself by taking refuge in a sanctuary until he had made compensation to the relatives of his victim. From his sanctuary, protected by the right of asylum, he could enter into negotiations with them as to what compensation must be paid. When the State took into its own hands the regulation of vengeance for bloodshed, it respected the right of sanctuary in so far that the three places[7] of trial were connected with three sanctuaries.’ Now we can find no evidence for the operation of a right of sanctuary in Homer. Hence this theory of Gilbert would compel us to believe that not only murder trials but even wergeld payments were of post-Homeric origin!