In contemplation of law, in fact, the slave is the absolute property of his lord, a chattel to be disposed of at the lord’s pleasure, and having a value only for the benefit of the lord, or of some public authority in his place. The serf cannot represent himself or others: his interests must be guarded by others, for he himself has no standing in any public court. He is not in any friðborh, or association for mutual guarantee, for he has nothing of his own to defend, and no power to defend what another has. If he be slain by a stranger, his lord claims the damages, and not his children: if the lord himself slay him, it is but the loss of so much value,—a horse, an ox, gone—more or less. Out of his death no feud can arise, for the relatives who allowed him to fall into, or remain in slavery, have renounced the family bond, and forfeited both the wergyld and the mund. If he be guilty of wrong, he cannot make compensation in money or in chattels; for he can have no property of his own save his skin: thus his skin must pay for him[386], and the lash be his bitter portion. He cannot defend himself by his own oath or the oaths of friends and compurgators, but, if accused, must submit to the severe, uncertain and perilous test of the ordeal. And if, when thus hunted down, he be found guilty, severe and ignominious punishment,—amounting, in a case of theft, to death by flogging for men, by burning for women,—is reserved for him[387]. Naturally and originally there can be no limitation in the amount or the character of labour imposed upon him, and no stipulation for reciprocal advantage in the form of protection, food or shelter. Among the Saxons the wíteþeów at least appears to have been bound to the soil, _adscriptus glebae_[388], conveyed with it under the comprehensive phrase “mid mete and mid mannum:” though in some few cases we can trace a power, vested perhaps only in certain public authorities, of transferring the slave from one estate to another[389]. Last, but most fearful of all, the taint of blood descended to his offspring, and the innocent progeny, to the remotest generations, were born to the same miserable fate as bowed down the guilty or unfortunate parent. Footnote 386: The compensation for a flogging was called hídgeld. Footnote 387: Leg. Æðelst. iii. § 6. Thorpe, i. 219. Footnote 388: Cod. Dipl. Nos. 311, 1079. Footnote 389: Ibid. No. 311. The serfs mentioned in this document were at first attached to the royal vill of Bensington; but were now transferred to the land of the church at Radnor, with their offspring, and their posterity for ever.