CAP. 36. "Let him who takes a thief, or to whom one taken is given, and he then lets him go, or conceals the theft, pay for the thief according to his 'wer.' If he be an ealdorman, let him forfeit his shire, unless the king is willing to be merciful to him." Now the earliest direct legislation about personal property in a statute is as late as 1100; but this early Saxon law was a recognition of personal property, because a man cannot steal a thing unless there is property. This section, therefore, implies property in personalty; because a man cannot steal land; but it never occurred to them to pass a law saying that there _shall be_ private property, because that was the unwritten law that they were all supposed to know. A.D. 890. WESSEX. ALFRED. CAP. 27. "If a man, kinless of paternal relatives, fight and slay a man, and then if he have maternal relatives, let them pay a third of the 'wer'; his guild-brethren a third part; for a third let him flee. If he have no maternal relatives, let his guild-brethren pay half, for half let him flee." CAP. 28. "If a man kill a man thus circumstanced, if he have no relatives, let half be paid to the king, half to his guild-brethren." It is very hard for us to understand what that means. One would infer that the weregild was only paid by a man with relatives on his father's side. It doesn't say that, but that is the inference. We shall have plenty to say about the guilds later--the historical predecessors of the modern trades-unions. We here find the word _guild_ recognized and spoken of in the law as early as 890. A.D. 920. WESSEX. EDWARD. "2. And if a ceorl throve, so that had fully five hides of his own land, church and kitchen, bell-house and burh-gate-seat, and special duty in the king's hall, then was he thenceforth of thegn-right worthy. "6. And if a merchant throve, so that he fared thrice over the wide sea by his own means, then was he thenceforth of thegn-right worthy." Worldly success has thus always been the foundation of English nobility.