_Father._ There are many reasons why such men would rather be at court than live in the country or engage in trade. Some prefer being at court to living in the country (though in the king’s service their labor is as burdensome, or more so) because, though they are of excellent kinship, they have little wealth and cannot engage in trade on account of their poverty. If they take up work in the country, they find many who have more wealth, though they are no higher in kinship, or scarcely so high. And when quarrels arise, the rich find protection in their wealth and thrust the poor aside, so that these can get no justice in their law suits. Consequently such men think it better to toil in security at court than without protection in the country. Others may have committed manslaughter or have come into other difficulties which make it urgent for them to seek security in the king’s power. Some there are, too, who always find pleasure in being in a throng; they also feel more secure there, whatever may happen. When these come back to the country where earlier they seemed so utterly defenseless, they regard themselves as the peers of every one, because of the protection which they enjoy as kingsmen. If one of them is slain in single combat, the king will take forty marks[236] in thegn money[237] for him as for his other thegns, and, in addition, one mark gold as housecarle fine,[238] which he exacts whenever a housecarle is slain. Footnote 236: The mark as a standard of value was widely used in the middle ages. Originally it was a measure of weight equivalent to eight ounces of gold or silver. Its value varied at different times and in different places. Dr. Gjerset estimates the purchasing power of a mark of silver in the fourteenth century as equal to that of $80 at the present time. _History of the Norwegian People_, II, 18-19, note. Footnote 237: Thegn money (_þegngildi_) was a fine paid to the king by one who had been guilty of manslaughter. Footnote 238: The housecarle fine was higher than that exacted for the death of a common subject because the housecarle stood in a personal relation to the king.