Now the _medume leódgeld_ of the ceorl is stated to be one hundred shillings (§ 7), and if Grimm and Thorpe were right in translating this the _half_ wergyld, we should have the very improbable sums of 200, 400 and 1666⅓ Kentish shillings. _Meduma_ however does not signify _half_, but _middling_, _moderate_: the enactment in Æðelberht’s law amounts in fact to this: If a man slay another, he is to pay his wergyld; but not so, if the slayer happen to be the king’s armourer or messenger; in that case he is to pay only a moderated wergyld of one hundred shillings. It was an exemption in favour of two most important officers of the royal household; and shows partly the growing encroachment of prerogative, partly the value set upon the talents of the officers themselves[513]. The common wergyld then was above one hundred, and I think it can be shown that it was below two hundred, shillings. The case of a wergyld paid for a king, though rare, is by no means unexampled[514]. In the year 687, Múl Æðelweard, a scion of the royal race of Wessex, invaded Kent, and having incautiously suffered himself to be surprised by the country-people, was burnt to death in a house where he had taken refuge with a few comrades. Seven years later the men of Kent made compensation to Ini for Múl’s death. The sum given is very variously stated. William of Malmesbury says it was thirty thousand mancuses[515]; which, calculated at eight mancuses to the pound, would be three thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds, and this is the sum mentioned by Florence of Worcester[516]. Æðelweard, the oldest Latin chronicler, but still removed four centuries from the time, makes it amount to thirty thousand solidi or shillings, each of which is to be calculated at sixteen pence[517]. Some manuscripts of the Saxon Chronicle read thirty thousand pounds[518], “þrittig þusend punda,”—others, thirty pounds, “þrittig punda.” Now however contradictory all these statements may at first sight appear (and there can be no doubt that some of them are ridiculously exaggerated), it is not impossible to reconcile and explain them. Every one of the authorities I have cited, except Florence, who has evidently calculated his sum upon what he believed to be the value of the mancus, reads thirty thousand of some coin or other. One will have them pounds, another shillings, another mancuses, etc. Now they are all wrong in their denomination, and all equally right in their number; and for this very obvious reason,—the originals from which they derived their information did mention the number, and did not mention the denomination. Each author put the question to himself, “Thirty thousand _what_?” and answered it by supplying the supposed omission with the coin most familiar to himself. But there cannot be the least doubt that the Saxon original read þrittig þusenda, thirty thousand, and nothing else; and this is not only actually the reading of some MSS. of the