The ancient tribal tradition that within the family there could be no feud or wergeld, but exile only, was still apparently in force. In Title LXIX. there is a clause which enacts that if any one shall slay one next in kin (‘proximus sanguinis’) he shall suffer exile and all his goods shall go to the fisc. This exile of the slayer of a near kinsman and forfeiture of his goods to the fisc seems to be almost the only distinct important survival of tribal feeling, apparently neither wergeld nor the death of the slayer being admitted. But in this case the fisc was, as usual, the gainer. Parricide under any system of criminal law would be a capital crime. The pertinacity with which the custom that, being a crime _within_ the kindred, there could be no feud and therefore no wergeld, was adhered to in the midst of manifold changes in circumstances, feeling, and law, is very remarkable. There is not much else in the Ripuarian laws throwing light upon tribal customs as regards the solidarity of the kindred. But there is a good deal of interesting information upon the important subject of the treatment of strangers in blood. [Sidenote: Distinction between persons living under Salic law and those living under Roman law who were treated as strangers in blood.] We have seen that in the Lex Salica the definition of the _ingenuus_ with a wergeld of 200 solidi was the _Francus_ or _barbarus_ living under Salic law. The ‘barbarus’ who lived under Salic law was no longer a stranger; he had in fact become a Frank. As we should say, he had been _naturalised_. Hence there was no inconsistency in the apparent occasional indiscriminate use of the words ‘Francus’ and ‘ingenuus.’ They meant the same thing. But there is nothing to show that the ordinary Gallo-Roman was included under the term ‘_barbarus_ who lived under Salic law.’ On the other hand, we find him living under the Roman law. In considering the method of dealing with people of so mixed a population as that of the Ripuarian district it is very important to recognise how, under tribal custom, every man continued to live under the law under which he was born, until by some legal process his nationality, so to speak, was admitted to be changed. The Cymric example has shown us how strictly the tribal blood and admission from outside into the tribe were guarded. In such a mixed population as that of the Ripuarian district, the strictness may have been somewhat relaxed, and the formalities of admission less difficult. But there is evidence enough, I think (with great deference to M. Fustel de Coulanges’ doubts on the subject), to show that to some extent at any rate social distinctions were still founded upon ‘difference of blood.’ At all events it is worth while to examine the additional evidence afforded by some clauses in the Ripuarian laws. [Sidenote: Strangers of allied tribes have wergelds according to the law of their birth, but if they cannot find compurgators must go to the ordeal.]