Qui aliquem de parentibus suis occidet, dignis apud Deum penitencie fructibus emendet; et in modo penitencie sit, si sponte vel casu perpetravit; et excidat emendacio patrini sicut manbota domini: si non pertineat ei utrumque, et aliorum importunitate, quorum consanguineus est, cogatur eum reddere, sapientum hoc judicio, secundum genus, componatur. He who shall slay any one of his _parentes_, let him make amends by fruits of penitence worthy before God. And let the measure of the penance be according to whether he did it willingly or by accident. And the correction of the sponsor falls just as the manbot of the lord. If there does not pertain to him either the one or the other and by the importunity of others whose kinsman he is he shall be compelled to pay, let it be compounded for by judgment of wise men whatever that may be. The homicide of a kinsman was apparently still generally free from judicial interference or criminal law. The slayer is handed over to the Church and his punishment is spiritual penance. Even the manbot to the lord who has lost a man through his crime fails to be paid. But should there be a fear of trouble through the importunity of any of the kinsmen of the slain demanding compensation, then a compromise was to be effected by reference to the judgment of wise men. Tribal feeling is evidently not yet dead, although beginning in this matter to yield to the more modern view of individual responsibility for crime without regard to the question of kindred. There is at the same time recognition of the fact that the weakened tribal feeling is no longer always able to restrain the kinsmen from revenge in the case of wrong done within the kindred. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. _DANISH VIEW OF ANGLO-SAXON CUSTOM._ I. THE ‘DE INSTITUTIS LUNDONIE’--OF CNUT (?) [Sidenote: Fresh point of view.] Having thus tried to obtain, from the so-called ‘Laws of Henry I.’ (whatever they may be), a Norman view of Anglo-Saxon custom, we recognise that on some points we may have learned more from this Norman view than could directly have been learned solely from the earlier Anglo-Saxon laws themselves. The reason of this is obvious. Special laws issued at various times by Saxon kings do not profess to cover the whole ground of existing and well understood custom. Rather should special laws be regarded as modifications of custom made necessary at different periods by new circumstances. Thus no one of the sets of laws can be expected to give a general view of custom as a whole.