They used to meet from time to time, probably at a set time once a year, in a certain place, generally a hill, to which a certain sacredness was ascribed on that account, and there they would hold courts of law, to settle disputes brought before them, and would impose sentences, and discuss matters of interest to the tribe generally. Every free-man, every free-holder of land, had a right to be there and to give his vote. The man who had no land had no vote; he had no rights. So it was held a dreadful thing in {20} those days to be a "land-less" man. These free-holders were called "ceorls" (in later English, "churls"), and "ceorl" really means "man"; as if to imply that those who had not the right which the possession of land gave were hardly men at all. And of the "ceorls" there were some larger proprietors, who were called "eorls" (later "earls"). From that word too we get the "eorldermen" (or eldermen), who sometimes deliberated apart at the meetings and were greatly considered, as men of position and wisdom. But they had no rights over the "ceorls," except such as the "ceorls" voted to them and might take back again by vote. If any man deemed himself injured by another he could bring his case before the court, and if he made it good the court would award him compensation for the injury done him in the form of some cattle, or other valuable property to be given over to him by the man that did him the injury. The amount of the compensation it would be part of the work of the court of law to settle when it was assembled at the "mote hill" or place where the eldermen of the tribe gathered for the purpose. But, you may say, that is all very well for the man who had suffered an injury that was not fatal. You could compensate him, perhaps. But how about a man that had been killed? You could not very well compensate him. You could not. All you could do in a case like this would be to make the killer give compensation, in form of a heavy fine of cattle or goods, to the wife and family of the murdered man. But that would not be enough: the killer must be personally punished too, probably with death. And then you may say that, if he was to be punished with death, it would not much matter to him how many of his cattle or how much of his goods were {21} taken from him and given to the family of the man he had killed. [Sidenote: The Gothic family] It would not--to him personally; but it would matter to his wife and family. They would be the poorer by the amount of the fine that was paid. And it is thought likely that it was in this way that the custom grew of looking upon the family of a person who had suffered wrong as the people who were to be compensated for the wrong, rather than the sufferer himself; and also of looking upon the family of the man who had done the wrong as the people who should make the compensation, rather than the wrong-doer himself.