Cod. Dipl. No. 236. “Similiter de haereditate peregrinorum, id est Gallorum et Brittonum et horum similium, aecclesiae reddatur. Praetium quoque sanguinis peregrinorum, id est _wergyld_, dimidiam partem rex teneat, dimidiam aecclesiae antedictae reddant.” Footnote 170: Deut. Staatsr. i. 422, § 297. He cites an instruction of Margrave Albrecht of Brandenburg an. 1462, which contains this Christian-like provision:—“When a Roman emperor and king is crowned, he has a right to take all they possess throughout his realm, yea and their lives also, and to slay them, until only a little number of them be left, to serve as a memorial.” Kings and populations, without being heads of the holy Roman empire, assumed a similar right only too often. Footnote 171: Eádw. Conf. § 25. “Sciendum est quod omnes Judaei, ubicunque regno sint, sub tutela et defensione regis ligie debent esse. Neque aliquis eorum potest subdere se alicui diviti sine licentia regis; quia ipsi Judaei et omnia sua regis sunt. Quod si aliquis detinuerit illos vel pecuniam eorum, rex requirat tanquam suum proprium, si vult et potest.” Footnote 172: Cnut, ii. § 40. Thorpe, i. 400. ----- BRIDGE.—It is probable that no one could build a bridge without the royal licence, though I am not aware of any instance in the Saxon times: but I infer this from grants of the Frankish emperors and kings to that effect[173]. It is possible that this may have depended upon the circumstance that toll would be taken by the owner of such a bridge; but we may believe that other reasons concurred with this, and that the bridge originally had something of a holy character, and stood in near relation to the priesthood[174]. ----- Footnote 173: Böhm. Reg. Karol. Nos. 88, 680, 1931. Footnote 174: It has already been noticed as remarkable that Pontifex, the bridge-builder, should be the name for the priestly class. There are many superstitions connected with bridges, and the spirit of the bridge even to this day, in Germany, demands his victims as inexorably as the spirit of the river. Deut. Mythol. p. 563. The passage in Schol. Ælii Aristid. which speaks, according to a modern emendation, of Palladia in connection with bridges, is hopelessly corrupt. But Servius, Æneid, ii. 661, says the Athenian Pallas was called γεφυρῖτις (not γεφυρίστης as the copies have), and this is confirmed by the Interp. Virgil, published by Mai, where from her position on a bridge the goddess is called γεφυρῖτις Ἀθηνᾶ. Pherecydes (No. 101) and Phylarchus (No. 79) both appear to refer to this, if indeed the proposed readings can be admitted. See Fragm. Hist. Græc. pp. 95, 356. There was in very early times a _gens_ of γεφυραῖοι at Athens, but I do not know if they had any priestly functions. They had the worship of Δημήτηρ Ἄχαια, and were Cadmæans who had immigrated into Attica; from among them sprung Harmodius and Aristogeiton. -----